An American
Tragedy
An American Tragedy
is a 1925 novel by American writer
Theodore Dreiser
. He began the
manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned most of that text. It was based on
the notorious
murder of Grace Brown
in 1906 and the trial of her lover. In 1923 Dreiser returned
to the project, and with the help of his wife Helen and two editor-secretaries, Louise Campbell
and Sally Kusell, he completed the massive novel in 1925.
[1]
The book entered the
public domain
in the United States
on January 1, 2021.
Clyde Griffiths is raised by poor and devoutly religious parents
to help in their street
missionary
work. As a young man, Clyde must, to help support his family, take menial jobs as a
soda jerk
,
then a bellhop at a prestigious
Kansas City
hotel. There, his more sophisticated colleagues
introduce him to bouts of social drinking and sex with prostitutes.
Enjoying his new lifestyle, Clyde becomes infatuated with manipulative Hortense Briggs, who
manipulates him into buying her expensive gifts. When Clyde learns Hortense goes out with
other men, he becomes jealous. Nevertheless, he would rather spend money on her than to help
his sister, who had eloped, only to end up pregnant and abandoned by her lover.
Clyde's life changes dramatically when his friend Sparser, driving Clyde, Hortense, and other
friends back from a secluded rendezvous in the country in his boss's car, used without
permission, hits a little girl and kills her. Fleeing from the police at high speed, Sparser crashes