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

Chapter 1

Motivation

Why Dreiser Accepted the Changes
and Why Harper Made Them

A question facing the textual scholar of Jennie Gerhardt is why Dreiser allowed the editors at Harper to make so many changes to a manuscript he considered complete. We may assume that Dreiser was forced to accept these changes because he believed that the novel would not be published otherwise, but we must acknowledge that he approved the negotiated edited text even though his contract with Harper stipulated that he could take the manuscript to another publisher if he was unhappy with the result. However, we must also recognize that Dreiser was not a well-known author, having only published one novel, Sister Carrie. If he refused to honor his publishing contract because of editorial disputes, not only would the novel not be published, but Dreiser would become known in the publishing world as “difficult,” which would mar his chances of ever publishing another novel. At the same time, Harper and Brothers Publishing, the only firm to accept the finished manuscript,