Books with author Theodore Dreiser

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices.Sometime after being released from prison, Frank Cowperwood invests in stocks subsequent to the Panic of 1873, and becomes a millionaire. He decides to move out of Philadelphia and start a new life in the West. He moves to Chicago with his mistress Aileen and his attorney is finally able to persuade his first wife to agree to a divorce. Frank decides to take over the street-railway system. He bankrupts several opponents with the help of political allies. Meanwhile, Chicago society finds out about his past in Philadelphia and they turn on him, and after being unfaithful many times, Aileen eventually loses faith in him.

Frank Cowperwood, a fiercely ambitious businessman, emerges as the very embodiment of greed as he relentlessly seeks satisfaction in wealth, women, and power. As Cowperwood deals and double-deals, betrays and is in turn betrayed, his rise and fall come to represent the American success story stripped down to brutal realities-a struggle for spoils without conscience or pity. Dreiser's 1912 classic remains an unsparing social critique as well as a devastating character study of one of the most unforgettable American businessmen in twentieth-century literature.