An American Tragedy.

DREISER, Theodore.

Item Number: 92486

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925.

First editions of both volumes of Dreiser’s epic tragedy. From the library of American novelist Wallace Stegner, with his signature to the front free endpaper of both volumes. Often referred to as “The Dean of Western Writers”, Wallace Stegner taught at both Harvard and Stanford University where he founded the creative writing program; his students included Sandra Day O’Connor, Robert Stone, Ken Kesey, and Larry McMurtry. Stegner’s novel Angle of Repose won him the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and in 1977 he was awarded the National Book Award for The Spectator Bird. Octavo, 2 volumes, original cloth, gilt titles to the spine. In very good condition. An exceptional association linking two highly influential 20th century American novelists.

Based on a notorious 1906 criminal case, Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy tells the story of the ambitious, handsome, yet ill-educated Clyde Griffiths and his gradual descent. A tragedy in the strictest sense, Clyde's destruction begins with seduction and ends with a death sentence. The novel has been adapted several times for film, stage and radio, although not always attributed. Critics and commentators have compared elements of Woody Allen's film, Match Point (2005), to the central plot of the novel as well as the 1951 Paramount Pictures film A Place in the Sun, directed by George Stevens and starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters. Listed by Modern Library as one of 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century.