Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), the leading American literary figure of the early twentieth century, is best known for novels including Sister Carrie,Jennie Gerhardt,The Titan, and An American Tragedy.Yoshinobu Hakutani, professor of English and University Distinguished Scholar at Kent State University, is the author or editor of sixteen books, including Theodore Dreiser's Uncollected Magazine Articles, 1897-1902,Theodore Dreiser and American Culture: New Readings, and Young Dreiser: A Critical Study.

Reprints thirty-three of Dreiser's articles [and] amounts to an informal survey of American arts and popular culture at the turn of the 20th century. . . . A particular strength of the collection is the material that reveals Dreiser's interest in talented women." --Choice "This valuable and intelligently organized volume leads the reader in two directions: inward, toward a better understanding of Dreiser at a time when he was beginning to emerge as a major writer, and outward, toward a better understanding of the artistic figures, tastes, and assumptions of the 1890s and early twentieth-century America."--Thomas P. Riggio, general editor of The Dreiser Edition series "Hakutani's readable new collection of Dreiser's interviews and essays involves figures ranging from Lillian Nordica and Childe Hassam to Daniel Chester French and Alfred Stieglitz. The book reviews our appreciation of just how steady a finger Dreiser held on the pulse of the American artistic scene during those crucial turn-of-the-century years when the Modernist era struggled to be born."--Philip Gerber, author of Theodore Dreiser