An American Tragedy

An American Tragedy is a 1925 novel by American writer Theodore Dreiser. He began the manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned most of that text. It was based on the notorious murder of Grace Brown in 1906 and the trial of her lover, Chester Gillette. In 1923 Dreiser returned to the project, and with the help of his future wife Helen and two editor-secretaries, Louise Campbell and Sally Kusell, he completed the massive novel in 1925. The book entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2021. Plot Clyde Griffiths is raised by poor and devoutly religious parents to help in their street missionary work. As a young man, Clyde must, to help support his family, take menial jobs as a soda jerk, then a bellhop at a prestigious Kansas City hotel. There, his more sophisticated colleagues introduce him to bouts of social drinking and sex with prostitutes. Enjoying his new lifestyle, Clyde becomes infatuated with manipulative Hortense Briggs, who manipulates him into buying her expensive gifts. When Clyde learns Hortense goes out with other men, he becomes jealous. Nevertheless, he would rather spend money on her than to help his sister, who had eloped, only to end up pregnant and abandoned by her lover. Clyde's life changes dramatically when his friend Sparser, driving Clyde, Hortense, and other friends back from a secluded rendezvous in the country in his boss's car, used without permission, hits a little girl and kills her. Fleeing from the police at high speed, Sparser crashes the car. Everyone but Sparser and his partner flee the scene of the crime. Clyde leaves Kansas City, fearing prosecution as an accessory to Sparser's crimes.