DREISER, THEODORE. 1871-1945. Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. New York Doubleday, Page & Co., 1900.

The Library of David Lloyd, Part IDREISER, THEODORE. 1871-1945.
Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1900. 8vo. Publisher's red cloth, ruled and lettered in black, custom quarter morocco and cloth clamshell box. Slightly rubbed, spine cloth slightly darkened corners a bit rounded, very light fraying to cloth at corners of spine, minor fingermarks and spotting.FIRST EDITION. Now considered an American classic, Sister Carrie initially sold very poorly. Frank Doubleday (or his wife) objected to the language and the frank depiction of the fallen woman, and personally edited the proof insisting on the removal of profanity and certain suggestive passages. Doubleday and Dreiser avoided prosecution, but the novel was still controversial. In his 1930 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Sinclair Lewis paid tribute to Dreiser and Sister Carrie: "without his pioneering, I doubt if any of us could, unless we liked to be sent to jail, seek to express life, beauty and terror" (Lewis, "American Fear of Literature" speech, 1930). McDonald 28-32; Orton 16-19.