Theodore Dreiser had a hardscrabble youth and years of newspaper work behind him when he began his first novel, Sister Carrie, the story of a pretty Midwestern girl who makes it big in New York City. Published by Doubleday in 1900, the novel was altered to make it more palatable to the audiences of the day, which caused Dreiser considerable anguish. It nevertheless gained a reputation as a shocker, for Dreiser had dared to give to the world a heroine whose "cosmopolitan standard of virtue" brings her from Wisconsin, with four dollars in her purse, to a suite at the Waldorf and glittering fame as an actress. With Sister Carrie, Dreiser told a tale not sufficiently delicate for many of its first readers and critics, but which is now universally recognized as one of the greatest and most influential of American novels.
Despite Sister Carrie's growing prominence, not until 1981 did a reconstructed, unexpurgated version appear. Intended for scholars, it was based on Dreiser's original manuscript, housed in The New York Public Library's collection. The text of that unexpurgated edition is the one presented here, enhanced by rare materials from the Library's archives, including selections from Dreiser's correspondence with H.L. Mencken and photographs from turn-of-the-century New York. This remarkable work, which allows Dreiser's voice to be heard clearly and without censorship, is likely to be the closest approximation we will ever have to Carrie's story as the author intended it.