In this volume, liberally seasoned with period illustrations, Yoshinobu Hakutani has collected and annotated a rich selection of Theodore Dreiser's pre-fame writings on the cultural milieu of his day.
In these brief essays, Dreiser sallies into the vibrant world of creative work in turn-of-the-century America. He inspects the eccentric and revealing paraphernalia of artists' studios, probes the work habits of writers, and goes behind the scenes in the popular song-writing business, where this week's celebrity is next week's has-been. He profiles famous figures and introduces numerous women artists, novelists, and musicians, including the prolific and tireless Amelia Barr (mother of fourteen children and author of thirty-two novels), the illustrator Alice B. Stephens, and the opera singer Lillian Nordica. Hakutani's notes provide biographical detail on dozens of now-obscure individuals mentioned by Dreiser.
| Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Editorial Note Introduction PART 1: ART AND ARTISTS A High Priestess of Art: Alice B. Stephens Work of Mrs. Kenyon Cox Art Work of Irving R. Wiles The American Water-Color Society A Painter of Travels: Gilbert Gaul Artists' Studios: Hints Concerning the Aim of All Decoration America's Sculptors A Painter of Cats and Dogs: John Henry Dolph Karl Bitter, Sculptor E. Percy Moran and His Work America's Greatest Portrait Painters Concerning Bruce Crane The Camera Club of New York Lawrence E. Earle The Color of To-Day: William Louis Sonntag A Remarkable Art: Alfred Stieglitz PART 2: THE WORLD OF MUSIC Our Women Violinists Birth and Growth of a Popular Song His Life Given Up to Music: Theodore Thomas American Women Who Play the Harp American Women Violinists American Women Who Are Winning Fame as Pianists The Story of a Song-Queen's Triumph: Lillian Nordica Whence the Song PART 3: LITERARY HERITAGE Historic Tarrytown: Washington Irving Anthony Hope Tells a Secret How He Climbed Fame's Ladder: William Dean Howells Haunts of Nathaniel Hawthorne Literary Lions I Have Met Amelia E. Barr and Her Home Life The Home of William Cullen Bryant American Women as Successful Playwrights John Burroughs in His Mountain Hut Appendix: Dreiser's Magazine Articles, 1897-1902 Index Back cover | 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
|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...