The Trouble with Dreiser: Harper and the Editing of Jennie Gerhardt
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The Trouble with Dreiser: Harper and the Editing of Jennie Gerhar ...

Chapter :  Introduction
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a masculine perspective” (Cohen 735). Supporters of the restored text, such as West, contend that Harper's bowdlerization of the novel may explain why it has never measured up critically to such Dreiser classics as Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy (“Intro” ix). In his essay on the restored Jennie Gerhardt, Robert Elias states:

Like Sister Carrie the story contrasts material success and failure, and also like Sister Carrie it suggests that there is something elusive beyond material success that the sensitive individual experiences and that no one can definitely verbalize. But where Sister Carrie concludes by leaving readers sensing they have followed the account of two ultimately diverging careers, Jennie Gerhardt portrays connections. (“Janus” 3–4)

Such arguments are supported by comments on the original manuscript that were made before or during Harper's revision and publication of the novel. For instance, when Dreiser asked Lillian Rosenthal to comment on the original manuscript, she writes in her letter dated January 25, 1911:

There is a simplicity of action and expression which is distinctive. It is aesthetic and convincing, and one is constrained to recognize the truth about life. A book of this kind may well stand comparison with the best works on psychology. It is worthy of applause which you may well claim for its versatile realism. (Dreiser Collection)

An unsigned letter to Dreiser dated March 23, 1911, reads, “I should infer from these letters that ‘Jennie’ is better in technique than ‘Sister Carrie’…I always regretted there wasn’t more of that bit of realism in ‘Sister Carrie’ ” (Dreiser Collection). James Huneker, too, writes to Dreiser on June 4, 1911:

I'm not yet certain whether I like it better than Sister Carrie, but it doesn't matter—it's different….What made me happy while reading it was that it attempted to prove nothing; didn't advocate socialism, or Christian Science, or any of the new thought breakfast foods. A moving, vivid picture of life, nothing else. (Dreiser Collection)