Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics S - Theodore Dreiser [225]
Lingeman, Richard. Theodore Dreiser: At the Gates of the City (1871-1907). New York: Putnam, 1986.
Loving, Jerome. The Last Titan: A Life of Theodore Dreiser. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Matthiessen, F. O. Theodore Dreiser. New York: Sloane, 1951.
Swanberg, W. A. Dreiser. New York: Scribner, 1965.
Criticisms
Fisher, Philip. Hard Facts: Setting and Form in the American Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Kazin, Alfred. On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1995.
Kazin, Alfred, and Charles Shapiro, eds. The Stature of Theodore Dreiser. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958.
Moers, Ellen. Two Dreisers: The Man and the Novelist as Revealed in His Two Most Important Books: Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. New York: Viking, 1969.
Pizer, Donald. The Novels of Theodore Dreiser: A Critical Study. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976.
Warren, Robert Penn. Homage to Theodore Dreiser. New York: Random House, 1971.
Books About the Times
Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House. 1910. New York: Signet Classics, 1961.
Beer, Thomas. The Mauve Decade. 1926. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1997.
Carnegie, Andrew. 1900. The Gospel of Wealth, and Other Timely Essays. Edited by Edward C. Kirkland. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962.
Veblen, Thorstein. 1899. Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Penguin, 1994.
Ziff, Larzer. The American 1890s: Life and Times of a Lost Generation. New York: Viking, 1966.
a
City north of Chicago noted for its opulent resorts and healing spring waters.
b
Working-class street on Chicago’s near West Side.
c
By 1890 Chicago’s population had soared to more than 1 million; in 1880 it had been 503,000.
d
Theater on Halstead and Madison Streets on Chicago’s West Side.
e
Dreiser situates Fitzgerald and Moy in the bustling center of downtown Chicago.
f
Joseph Jefferson was a star actor admired for his portrayal of Rip Van Winkle in a play Hurstwood disparages (see p. 102).
g
Popular 1887 farce by Charles H. Hoyt.
h
An elegant restaurant Drouet liked to frequent.
i
Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1885 operetta, a smash hit in its first New York run, was wildly popular throughout the entire country.
j
Card game in which each player gets five cards, and the player who trumps must win three tricks to win a hand. The verb “euchre” means to deceive or trick somebody.
k
The term sec designates a dry white wine or champagne.
l
Resort northwest of Chicago.
m
A patent medicine.
n
The leading theater in Chicago during the 1880s and 1890s.
o
Kinsley’s was a restaurant on Adams Street, and the Tremont was a venerable hotel on Lake and Dearborn.
p
Town west of Chicago that is now a suburb of the city.
q
“Over the Hills to the Poorhouse” is a maudlin poem written in 1873 by Will Carleton, Michigan’s poet laureate.
r
John L. Sullivan (1858—1918) won the last bare-knuckles heavyweight championship in 1889; he was idolized for his boxing prowess and swaggering personality.
s
Chicago’s most luxurious and prestigious hotel in the 1880s, and the first to have elevators, electricity, and telephones.
t
The principal venue for light musical entertainments—vaudeville and revues featuring chorus girls, dances, dance classes, concerts, banquets, wrestling, and illustrated lectures.
u
A popular 1886 comedy by actor and playwright Denman Thompson that poked fun at rustic characters; it ran for more than twenty years and was made into a film in 1915.
v
Dreiser’s misspelling; the store’s name was Sea & Co.
w
Pinkerton and Mooney and Boland were the two largest and best-known detective agencies in the country. The two firms were often hired by corporations as strike breakers; they often resorted to violence to achieve their goal.
x
Fashionable and pricey hotel in the theater district.
y
According to the 1890 census, New York’s population numbered 1.5 million; the steady stream of immigrants meant the city would grow for decades.
z
Because the wholesale food district was located in Lower Manhattan, a tavern located there could expect a reasonably lucrative trade.