Sister Carrie

Theodore Dreiser's first and perhaps greatest novel appeared in 1900. The story is about a young country girl who moves to the big city, where she starts realizing her own American Dream by embarking on a life of sin rather than by hard work and perseverance. On publication, it met with outraged disapproval and was immediately withdrawn as "too shocking and sordid for polite readers". But it is precisely in Dreiser's compassionate exploration of ordinary men and women, their frailty and humanity, that this stormy, controversial novel remains supreme.