A source of inspiration to writers from William Faulkner to Saul Bellow and Joyce Carol Oates, Dreiser's remarkable first novel is an eminently American roller-coaster of rapidly rising and falling fortunes. Banned after its initial publication in 1900, its realist narrative counterplays the story of a young woman seduced by the modern city with that of the middle-aged man who enslaves himself with his love for her. This is the only paperback version using the text widely regarded by scholars as Dreiser's final version.