Skip to Main Content (Press Enter) Toggle side nav

Sister Carrie

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser
Introduction by Andrew Delbanco

By Theodore Dreiser
Introduction by Andrew Delbanco

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

By Theodore Dreiser

Best Seller

Part of Vintage Classics

Part of Modern Library 100 Best Novels

Part of Vintage Classics

Part of Modern Library 100 Best Novels

Paperback $9.95

Dec 28, 2021 | ISBN 9780593314883

Paperback $16.00

Mar 02, 1999 | ISBN 9780375753213

Mass Market Paperback $5.99

Jan 01, 1982 | ISBN 9780553213744

Ebook $8.99

Dec 28, 2021 | ISBN 9780593467329

Ebook $1.99

Oct 30, 2007 | ISBN 9780553904307

Ebook $12.99

Nov 01, 2000 | ISBN 9780679641384

All Formats
+
    Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
    Paperback $9.95
    Dec 28, 2021 | ISBN 9780593314883

    Buy from Other Retailers:

    See All Formats (5) +

    Paperback (3)
    –

    • Paperback $9.95

      Dec 28, 2021 | ISBN 9780593314883

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Paperback $16.00

      Mar 02, 1999 | ISBN 9780375753213

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Mass Market Paperback $5.99

      Jan 01, 1982 | ISBN 9780553213744

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Ebook (3)
    +

    • Ebook

      Dec 28, 2021 | ISBN 9780593467329

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Ebook

      Oct 30, 2007 | ISBN 9780553904307

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    • Ebook

      Nov 01, 2000 | ISBN 9780679641384

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Buy the Ebook:

    About Sister Carrie

    This landmark novel about a small-town girl who runs away to the big city has been hailed as one of the greatest portraits of urban life in American literature.

    When Theodore Dreiser’s epic first novel stormed onto the literary scene in 1900, it was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. Celebrated for the vibrant and gritty realism of its portrayal of city life, Sister Carrie also gave the world an unforgettable heroine—a thoroughly modern young woman who turned the traditional cautionary tale of the fallen woman on its head.

    When Carrie Meeber runs away to Chicago, she has nothing to rely on but her beauty and a fierce determination to improve her life. She escapes work in a factory by becoming the mistress of first one man and then a more successful one but ultimately leaves them behind for success and fame on the stage in New York.

    Long hailed as one of the best novels of the twentieth century, Sister Carrie provides a panoramic view of the dynamic and relentless forces that still drive city life and American culture.

    About Sister Carrie

    Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

    “Theodore Dreiser is a man who, with the passage of time, is bound to loom larger and larger in the awakening aesthetic consciousness of America. Among all of our prose writers he is one of the few men of whom it may be said that he has . . . never been a trickster. If there is a modern movement in American prose writing, a movement toward greater courage and fidelity to life in writing, Theodore Dreiser is the pioneer and the hero of the movement.”–Sherwood Anderson

    Long before she was seduced by the cautious and ordinary man whose life she would unravel with no malice and only intermittent interest, the young Carrie Meeber was seduced by the promise of the city–its vitality and reckless possibility, the thrill of material luxury, and the spectacle of power and industry. Banned on publication for its questionable morals, Sister Carrie is the great American novel of seduction, a masterpiece of insight into appetite and innocence.

    “Such a novel as Sister Carrie stands quite outside the brief traffic of the customary stage. It leaves behind an inescapable impression of bigness, of epic sweep and dignity. It is not a mere story, not a novel in the customary American meaning of the word; it is at once a psalm of life and a criticism of life. . . . [Dreiser’s] aim is not merely to tell a tale; his aim is to show the vast ebb and flow of forces which sway and condition human destiny. The thing he seeks to do is to stir, to awaken, to move. One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched.”–H. L. Mencken

    About Sister Carrie

    “When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.” With Sister Carrie, first published in 1900, Theodore Dreiser transformed the conventional “fallen woman” story into a genuinely innovative and powerful work of fiction. As he hurled his impressionable midwestern heroine into the throbbing, amoral world of the big city, he revealed, with brilliant insight, the deep and driving forces of American culture: the restless idealism, glamorous materialism, and basic spiritual innocence.

    Sister Carrie brought American literature into the twentieth century. This volume, which reprints the text Dreiser approved for publication during his lifetime and includes a special appendix discussing his earlier, unedited manuscript, is the original standard edition of one of the great masterpieces of literary realism.

    About Sister Carrie

    “When a girl leaves home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.” With Sister Carrie, first published in 1900, Theodore Dreiser transformed the conventional “fallen woman” story into a genuinely innovative and powerful work of fiction. As he hurled his impressionable midwestern heroine into the throbbing, amoral world of the big city, he revealed, with brilliant insight, the deep and driving forces of American culture: the restless idealism, glamorous materialism, and basic spiritual innocence.

    Sister Carrie brought American literature into the twentieth century. This volume, which reprints the text Dreiser approved for publication during his lifetime and includes a special appendix discussing his earlier, unedited manuscript, is the original standard edition of one of the great masterpieces of literary realism.

    About Sister Carrie

    Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

    “American writing, before and after Dreiser’s time, differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin,” said H. L. Mencken. Sister Carrie, Dreiser’s great first novel, transformed the conventional “fallen woman” story into a bold and truly innovative piece of fiction when it appeared in 1900. Naïve young Caroline Meeber, a small-town girl seduced by the lure of the modern city, becomes the mistress of a traveling salesman and then of a saloon manager, who elopes with her to New York. Both its subject matter and Dreiser’s unsparing, nonjudgmental approach made Sister Carrie a controversial book in its time, and the work retains the power to shock readers today.

    “Sister Carrie came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman,” noted Sinclair Lewis. “Dreiser enlarged, willy-nilly, by a kind of historical accident if you will, the range of American literature,” observed Robert Penn Warren. “[Sister Carrie] is a vivid and absorbing work of art.”

    About Sister Carrie

    Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

    ‘American writing, before and after Dreiser’s time, differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin,’ said H. L. Mencken. Sister Carrie, Dreiser’s great first novel, transformed the conventional ‘fallen woman’ story into a bold and truly innovative piece of fiction when it appeared in 1900. Naïve young Caroline Meeber, a small-town girl seduced by the lure of the modern city, becomes the mistress of a traveling salesman and then of a saloon manager, who elopes with her to New York. Both its subject matter and Dreiser’s unsparing, nonjudgmental approach made Sister Carrie a controversial book in its time, and the work retains the power to shock readers today.

    ‘Sister Carrie came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman,’ noted Sinclair Lewis. ‘Dreiser enlarged, willy-nilly, by a kind of historical accident if you will, the range of American literature,’ observed Robert Penn Warren. ‘[Sister Carrie] is a vivid and absorbing work of art.’

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by Theodore Dreiser

    An American Tragedy
    An American Tragedy
    Sister Carrie
    The Financier
    Sister Carrie
    See all books by Theodore Dreiser

    Also by Theodore Dreiser

    An American Tragedy
    An American Tragedy
    Sister Carrie
    The Financier
    Sister Carrie
    See all books by Theodore Dreiser

    Also by Theodore Dreiser

    An American Tragedy
    An American Tragedy
    Sister Carrie
    The Financier
    Sister Carrie
    See all books by Theodore Dreiser

    Also by Theodore Dreiser

    An American Tragedy
    An American Tragedy
    Sister Carrie
    The Financier
    Sister Carrie
    See all books by Theodore Dreiser

    Also by Theodore Dreiser

    An American Tragedy
    An American Tragedy
    Sister Carrie
    The Financier
    Sister Carrie
    See all books by Theodore Dreiser

    Also by Theodore Dreiser

    An American Tragedy
    An American Tragedy
    Sister Carrie
    The Financier
    Sister Carrie
    See all books by Theodore Dreiser

    About Theodore Dreiser

    Theodre Dreiser was born into a large and impoverished German American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He began his writing career as a reporter, working for newspapers in Chicago. Pittsburg, and St. Louis, until an editor friend, Arthur… More about Theodore Dreiser

    About Theodore Dreiser

    Theodre Dreiser was born into a large and impoverished German American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He began his writing career as a reporter, working for newspapers in Chicago. Pittsburg, and St. Louis, until an editor friend, Arthur… More about Theodore Dreiser

    About Theodore Dreiser

    Theodre Dreiser was born into a large and impoverished German American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He began his writing career as a reporter, working for newspapers in Chicago. Pittsburg, and St. Louis, until an editor friend, Arthur… More about Theodore Dreiser

    About Theodore Dreiser

    Theodre Dreiser was born into a large and impoverished German American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He began his writing career as a reporter, working for newspapers in Chicago. Pittsburg, and St. Louis, until an editor friend, Arthur… More about Theodore Dreiser

    About Theodore Dreiser

    Theodre Dreiser was born into a large and impoverished German American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He began his writing career as a reporter, working for newspapers in Chicago. Pittsburg, and St. Louis, until an editor friend, Arthur… More about Theodore Dreiser

    About Theodore Dreiser

    Theodre Dreiser was born into a large and impoverished German American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He began his writing career as a reporter, working for newspapers in Chicago. Pittsburg, and St. Louis, until an editor friend, Arthur… More about Theodore Dreiser

    Product Details

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $9.95
    Published by Vintage
    Dec 28, 2021 | 464 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780593314883

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Paperback | $16.00
    Published by Modern Library
    Mar 02, 1999 | 752 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780375753213

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Mass Market Paperback | $5.99
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Jan 01, 1982 | 560 Pages | 4-3/16 x 6-7/8 | ISBN 9780553213744

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $8.99
    Published by Vintage
    Dec 28, 2021 | 464 Pages | ISBN 9780593467329

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $1.99
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Oct 30, 2007 | 560 Pages | ISBN 9780553904307

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by Modern Library
    Nov 01, 2000 | 560 Pages | ISBN 9780679641384
    Looking for More Great Reads?
    21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
    Get the latest updates from Theodore Dreiser
    And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.
    And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.
    By clicking SIGN UP, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
    Dismiss
    Thanks!
    Something awesome is on its way.
    Back to Top

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Raise kids who love to read

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read
    Today's Top Books

    Today's Top Books

    Want to know what people are actually reading right now?
    An online magazine for today’s home cook

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook