Picture and a Criticism of Life

Before coming to national attention for his novel Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser worked for nearly a decade as a magazine editor and freelance writer. Now in paperback, Art, Music, and Literature, 1897-1902 collects a rich selection of Dreiser's brief, colorful articles and interviews with American artists, musicians, and writers during this period. His profiles and interviews include such notables as Alfred Stieglitz, William Dean Howells, and legendary impresario Major James Burton Pond, as well as numerous women artists, novelists, and musicians. The volume is liberally seasoned with period illustrations reproduced from the original publications, and Yoshinobu Hakutani's notes provide biographical details about Dreiser's various subjects.