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Sister Carrie (Norton Critical Editions)
by: Theodore Dreiser

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780393927733
ISBN: 0393927733
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 611
Publication Date: November 01, 2005
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
Sales Rank: 89357

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
The text of the Third Edition is based on the 1900 Doubleday Page edition, with detailed annotations that reveal the author's use of real people and places in Chicago and New York. The novel is followed by "A Note on the Text," which discusses the relationship between this edition's text and that of the Pennsylvania Edition (1981), and a "Textual Appendix," which provides a generous sampling of the cuts Dreiser and his friend Arthur Henry made in the typescript version of Sister Carrie.

"Backgrounds and Sources" reprints generous excerpts from Dreiser's autobiographies and other writings that help establish his personal connection to the novel. Coverage of the supposed "suppression" of Sister Carrie by its first publisher is drawn from Dreiser's correspondence with Frank Norris, Arthur Henry, Walter H. Page, and F. N. Doubleday.

"Criticism" collects thirteen essays, six of them new to the Third Edition, that discuss Dreiser's distinctive literary naturalism and narrative technique, the novel's relationship to American culture, and issues of gender and class in the novel, among other topics. Contributors include Ellen Moers, Robert Penn Warren, Amy Kaplan, Alan Trachtenberg, and Donald Pizer, among others.

A Chronology of Sister Carrie and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

Amazon.com Review:
Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel, was published in 1900--sort of. The story of Carrie Meeber, an 18-year-old country girl who moves to Chicago and becomes a kept woman, was strong stuff at the turn of the century, and what Dreiser's wary publisher released was a highly expurgated version. Times change, and we now have a restored "author's cut" of Sister Carrie that shows how truly ahead of his time Dreiser was. First and foremost, he has written an astute, nonmoralizing account of a woman and her limited options in late-19th-century America. That's impressive in and of itself, but Dreiser doesn't stop there. Digging deeply into the psychological underpinnings of his characters, he gives us people who are often strangers to themselves, drifting numbly until fate pushes them on a path they can later neither defend nor even remember choosing.

Dreiser's story unfolds in the measured cadences of an earlier era. This sometimes works brilliantly as we follow the choices, small and large, that lead some characters to doom and others to glory. On the other hand, the middle chapters--of which there are many--do drag somewhat, even when one appreciates Dreiser's intentions. If you can make it through the sagging midsection, however, you'll be rewarded by Sister Carrie's last 150 pages, which depict the harrowing downward spiral of one of the book's central characters. Here Dreiser portrays with brutal power how the wrong decision--or lack of decision--can lay waste to a life. --Rebecca Gleason

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Fluidity of life in a budding capitalistic society
I think that the subject matters of this book definitely have a special place in the American literature. The attractions and risks of the vibrant, everchanging society and confusions over the shifting values and the desire to maintain the appearance of the old morals, and one's life can change any minute by luck, misfortune, or choices resulted from impulsivity or lazy complacency etc. I gave only 3 stars because of the lack of personalities in main characters, they seem rather flat to me, not generating much emotions, neither compassion, or disgust. However, perhaps this also may be was the author's intention to depict how ind's volitions and personalities are inconsequential to the more powerful forces of the circumstances of that time.

Rating:

- Getting Your Mrs. Degree Without Going to College
"Sister Carrie" is a novel that I happened upon accidently. I ordered it when I thought I was ordering another and it was delivered to my door. Since it was recommended for a creative writing class, I figured I might as well read it since I love a long, epic novel. Little did I know what I was getting into.
Carrie reads abruptly Brittish at first, with all the proper nouns and pronouns making it seem, straight away, like a snobbish and bourgoise book. Once I got past the first few pages, however, I was at once intrigued and secretly invited to hear, not read, the tale of an original fem fatale.
As I read, I could actually hear the dialog and ambience of the era, horse-drawn carriages, the buzz of a cafes, restaurants and lodges. And, of course, the rather brutish brother-in-law ... Read More

Rating:

- A mostly interesting story
"Sister Carrie", to begin with, is written in a most curious fashion. Theodore Dreiser, an author I'd never heard of before, writes in a very interesting and distinct style. Some would probably feel frustrated with it, as well as his rather blunt way of writing, but it's rather different and certainly good.

A story of a girl's slow and steady rise, "Sister Carrie" will capture readers first with its intrigue. Obviously, the idea of young Carrie whisked away to the city and within moments as a wealthier man's "wife", will have raised a few eyebrows. The way her life progresses is interesting too, from extremely low, to good, to almost better off, to bad, to better, and then finally to excellent. Her personality, though relatively static, is curious to follow as well. At first, as ... Read More

Rating:

- User Carrie
This is about life for a single woman at the turn of the century, when a good marriage or poverty were the only two choices a woman had, along with needlepoint. Yes, times were difficult for a single woman who had to go it alone; I will give that point. However, I don't see that as excuse to throw morality out the door, to use and be used by other people, and be constantly on the prowl for somebody better or more, prettier "things". I had a dislike of Carrie from early on. Dreiser repeatedly tries to portray her as a little country innocent when she was, in fact, a shallow, dull, weak-minded but evidently physically attractive woman. She uses her sister then dumps her; she uses her first "live in" boyfriend, then dumps him for a married man; she uses the married man but is on the lookout ... Read More

Rating:

- Fractured Fairy Tale and/or Horror Story on Capitalism
"Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth." Mahatma Gandhi

"She (Carrie Meeber) wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she was confused as to what these things might be." p. 145 "Sister Carrie"

Critics may scoff at the immorality of the main characters, the persistently subtle, yet always stinging slams at the evils of Capitalism, or how depressing the novel is. But despite it all, my interest never waned from the first page to the last. Yes, Dreiser's super-duper liberal (although liberal back in 1900 is a tad different than what we consider liberal today), but this man could sure write beautifully! At times, he's almost a poet, as I found myself reading some sentences and paragraphs ... Read More

Books : Sister Carrie (Norton Critical Editions)