Classics · TenseClyde Griffiths, raised by poor missionary parents, takes a bellhop job at a prestigious Kansas City hotel
An American Tragedy
A poor young man's ambitions take him from Kansas City to upstate New York
Clyde Griffiths grows up with poor, devoutly religious parents who do street missionary work. As a young man he takes menial jobs, first as a soda jerk and then as a bellhop at a prestigious Kansas City hotel, where he meets social drinking and new pleasures. The settings include Kansas City, Chicago and Lycurgus, New York, a fictional stand-in for Cortland, with the climax at the fictional Big Bittern Lake in the Adirondacks. It is based on the 1906 murder of Grace Brown and the trial of Chester Gillette. Boni & Liveright published it in 1925.
More about this book
Who
Clyde Griffiths.
World
Kansas City and Chicago, then the fictional Lycurgus, New York, and a lake in the Adirondacks.
What makes it different
It is based on a real 1906 murder and trial, and Dreiser gave Clyde the same initials as Chester Gillette.
Feel
Heavy and absorbing, at over 800 pages.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Further reading
- An American TragedyWikipedia