1. Pizer, Dowell, and Rusch make a similar statement: “Other issues of long-standing controversy in the discussion of Dreiser's work continued to attract much attention, which suggests that they have become the permanent center of Dreiser criticism. One of these is naturalism….” Theodore Dreiser: A Primary Bibliography and Reference Guide (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991) 93.

2. For instance, Miriam Gogol states that although most of the essays in her collection deal with Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, it is only because they are his most “popular works”: “It seems appropriate,” she writes, “that essays in this volume, which introduce Dreiser in new ways, focus on books that readers know and feel they are comfortable with.” Theodore Dreiser: Beyond Naturalism (New York: New York University Press, 1995) xi.

3. For a succinct discussion of the foundation and growth of textual scholarship, see Peter Shilling, “On Being Textually Aware,” Studies in American Naturalism 1 (summer and winter 2006): 170–195.

4. For a complete discussion of the ur-manuscript see Thomas P. Riggio, “Dreiser's Song of Innocence and Experience: The Ur-Text of Jennie Gerhardt,” Dreiser Studies 31 (fall 2000): 22–38.

5. This document is called the Barrett Typescript because it is kept in the Barrett collection at the Alderman Library, University of Virginia.