Theodore Dreiser

This first of a two-volume biography on the great American novelist takes Dreiser from his impoverished Indiana childhood and early experiences as a newspaperman to the year 1907, when he attained the ""inner city'' by assuming the editorship of three popular women's magazines and saw the successful republication of his first novel, Sister Carrie. More fully and sympathetically than any of Dreiser's previous biographers, Indiana-born social critic Lingeman, executive editor of the Nation, provides much new information about Dreiserespecially about his relationships with his brother, the popular song writer Paul Dresser, and with his gentle first wife Sara Osborne Whiteplaces him against the cultural and social life of his time and critically assesses his place in American literature. Photos. (October 14)