| Chapter 1: | Motivation: Why Dreiser Accepted the Changes and Why Harper Made Them |
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spinning illusions of literary fame, if not fortune, and planned to make his living as a novelist—‘to join the one a year group’” (Theodore 160).
Unfortunately, problems with publication began immediately. Negotiations were handled in the absence of Doubleday senior partner Frank Nelson Doubleday, who did not have a chance to read the work until after a publication contract had been signed. He was appalled at the subject matter, calling the novel “immoral.” Carrie, he announced, should not be published by “anybody,” let alone Doubleday Page (qtd. in Theodore 161). Doubleday's judgment of the novel placed both Dreiser and Doubleday Page in a difficult position. Dreiser believed that if Carrie was given a chance, the public would rally behind him: “If the book is worthy,” he wrote to Page, “it will be honored with the public's approval and our mutual profit” (Letters I 58). Doubleday Page, however, was not convinced, and asked Dreiser to release the company from the contract. Dreiser refused, stating that if the novel were not published, “I should be ashamed to face the literary coterie and…many others” (57). In addition, Dreiser believed that his literary career would be severely damaged if the novel were not released as soon as possible: “The orderly development of my literary career depends upon the early publication of Carrie,” he wrote to Page (61).
Doubleday Page, however, would not relent and warned Dreiser that if he did not release the company from its contract, it would suppress the novel upon publication: “[Doubleday Page] would make no effort to sell it as the more it sold the worse [Frank Doubleday] would feel about it” (Lingeman, Theodore 161). Dreiser was encouraged to take the novel elsewhere, but he refused to break the contract: “I venture to move against all your objections,” wrote Dreiser to Page, “and to beg you to proceed to the fulfillment of the original plan. I will ask you to publish the volume as quickly as possible…” (Letters I 62). Doubleday Page did publish the novel after some careful editing, and Carrie was released on schedule in the fall of 1900. 1 It also made good on its threats, however, and refused to publicize the novel, though it did fill contracted book orders to retail stores. Due largely to the enthusiasm of Frank Norris, reviews of the novel appeared, most of which were positive, but by and large the reading public was not aware even of Carrie's existence, let