1759 View Drive
San Leandro CA 94577

Black Lamb
SEARCH
Published Monthly

Writing for Readers

 blacklamb.org

ABOUT

Black Lamb was created to offer the discerning reader a stimulating selection of excellent original writing. Published monthly. (more)

FREE SAMPLE COPY

Click here to receive a free sample issue via U.S. mail. There is absolutely no obligation.

SUBSCRIBE

Support this independently published journal of fine essays. Annual subscriptions are $15 in the USA, $25 in Canada, $30 in the UK, or $35 elsewhere (all prices in US $). Click here to subscribe online via paypal or send a check to Black Lamb, 1759 View Drive, San Leandro CA 94577.

QUESTIONS

If you have questions or comments regarding Black Lamb, please email us.

A Week in Literary History

August 27th, 2002

American novelist Theodore Dreiser (Sister Carrie, 1900) is born in Terre Haute, Ind. in 1871.

Theodore Dreiser, b. August 27, 1871, d. 1945

dreiser.jpgFew major writers ever wrote worse than Dreiser, but as Mencken said, “one swiftly forgets his intolerable writing, his mirthless, sedulous, repellent manner, in the face of the Athenian tragedy he instils into his seduced and soul-sick servant girls, his barbaric pirates of finances, his conquered and hamstrung supermen, his wives who sit and wait.” The hugeness in Dreiser’s books — the unrelenting empathy, the implacable honesty — knock all the clumsiness into a corner, and we’re left with unique, unmediated greatness.

Suggested Reading Novels Sister Carrie, 1900. Jennie Gerhardt, 1911. The Financier, 1912. The Titan, 1914. The “Genius,” 1915. An American Tragedy, 1925.

Posted by: The Editors
Category: Books and Authors, A Week in Literary History | Link to this Entry

« A Week in Literary History A Week in Literary History »

LINKS

  • Blogroll

    		•