Editions
Dreiser, Theodore. American Diaries, 1902-1926. ed. Thomas P. Riggio, James L. W. West III, and Neda M. Westlake. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Eight diaries, plus fragments and annotations.
_______. An Amateur Laborer. ed. Richard W. Dowell, James L. W. West III, and Neda M. Westlake. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Dreiser’s account of his battle with neurasthenia, unpublished during his lifetime.
_______. Jennie Gerhardt. The Pennsylvania Edition. ed. James L. W. West III. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992. A scholarly edition, with notes, apparatus, illustrations, and appendices.
_______. Letters of Theodore Dreiser: A Selection. ed. Robert H. Elias. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959. 3 vols. The standard edition of Dreiser’s correspondence.
Books
Boyer, Paul S. Purity in Print: The Vice-Society Movement and Book Censorship in America. New York: Scribners, 1968. The popular reaction to books like Sister Carrie.
Elias, Robert H. Theodore Dreiser: Apostle of Nature. New York: Knopf, 1949; emended ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970. Critical biography.
Gerber, Philip. Theodore Dreiser Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1992. Criticism.
Hussman, Lawrence E., Jr. Dreiser and His Fiction: A Twentieth-Century Quest. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Criticism.
Lehan, Richard. Theodore Dreiser: His World and His Novels. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969. Criticism.
Lingeman, Richard. Theodore Dreiser: At the Gates of the City, 1871-1907; and Theodore Dreiser: An American Journey, 1908-1945. New York: Putnam, 1986, 1990. The standard two-volume biography.
Pizer, Donald. The Novels of Theodore Dreiser: A Critical Study. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976. Criticism.
Riggio, Thomas P., ed. Dreiser-Mencken Letters: The Correspondence of Theodore Dreiser & H. L. Mencken, 1907-1945. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. 2 vols. Mencken’s reaction to Jennie Gerhardt.
Salzman, Jack, ed. Theodore Dreiser: The Critical Reception. New York: David Lewis, 1972. The major reviews of Jennie Gerhardt.
Swanberg, W. A. Dreiser. New York: Scribners, 1965. Biography.
West, James L. W. Ill, ed. Dreiser’s Jennie Gerhardt: New Essays on the Restored Text. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994. Interpretation and historical context for the new edition.
Articles
Dance, Daryl C. “Sentimentalism in Dreiser’s Heroines, Carrie and Jennie.” CLA Journal 14 (December 1970): 127-42.
Epstein, Joseph. “A Great Good Girl: Dreiser’s Jennie Gerhardt.” New Criterion 11 (June 1993): 14-20.
Hapke, Laura. “Dreiser and the Tradition of the American Working Girl.” Dreiser Studies 22 (Fall 1991): 2-19.
Lingeman, Richard. “A Few Changes, Mr. Dreiser.” New York Times Book Review, November 7, 1993, 33-34.
Marcus, Mordecai. “Loneliness, Death, and Fulfillment in Jennie Gerhardt.” Studies in American Fiction 7 (Spring 1979): 61-73.
Schwartz, Carol A. “Jennie Gerhardt: Fairy Tale as Social Criticism.” American Literary Realism 19 (Winter 1987): 16-29.
Wadlington, Warwick. “Pathos and Dreiser.” Southern Review 7 (Spring 1971): 411-29.
West, James L. W. III. “Double Quotes and Double Meanings in Jennie Gerhardt.” Dreiser Studies 18:1 (Spring 1987): 1-11.
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
The text of this paperback edition of Jennie Gerhardt reproduces the Pennsylvania Edition of the novel, first published in 1992 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. That edition is an eclectic text prepared in accordance with the principles of Greg-Bowers-Tanselle copy-text editing; it represents an attempt to reconstruct an ideal text by critical, interpretive methods.
This restored edition is based on all extant documentary witnesses: an ur-manuscript, two typescripts, and a composite holograph/typescript fair copy at the Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, and a carbon typescript (the one that H. L. Mencken read) in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Relevant correspondence by Dreiser and others is preserved at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, the Arents Research Library at Syracuse University, and the Rare Book and Special Collections Library at the University of Illinois.
Readers interested in the theory and documentation that underpin this text of Jennie Gerhardt should consult the Historical and Textual Commentaries in the full-dress Pennsylvania Edition. They should also inspect the tables, notes, and appendixes of that edition for information about emendations and textual cruxes. Two corrections in the 1992 Pennsylvania text have been made for this paperback: at 50.3 “Dukedom” has become “Kingdom”; and at 55.3 “Father” now reads “Pastor.”
Jennie Gerhardt
CHAPTER I
One morning, in the fall of 1880, a middle-aged woman, accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerk’s desk of the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and made inquiry as to whether there was anything about the place that she could do. She was of a helpless, fleshy build, with a frank open countenance and an innocent, diffident manner. Her eyes were large and patient, and in them dwelt such a shadow of distress as only those who have looked sympathetically into the countenances of the distraught and helpless poor know anything about. Any one could see where the daughter behind her got the timidity and shamefacedness which now caused her to stand back and look indifferently away.
The fancy, the feeling, the innate affection of an untutored, but poetic mind, were all blended in the mother, but poverty was driving her. Excepting a kind of gravity and poise, which were characteristic of her father, the daughter inherited her disposition from her mother. Together they presented so appealing a picture of honest necessity, that even the clerk was affected.
“What is it you would like to do?” he said.
“Maybe you have some cleaning or scrubbing,” she replied, timidly. “I could wash the floors.”
The daughter, hearing the statement, turned uneasily, not because it irritated her to work, but because she hated people to know. The clerk interrupted because he did not like to see the mother strain so nervously at explaining. Manlike, he was affected by the evidence of beauty in distress. The innocent helplessness of the daughter made their lot seem hard.
“Wait a moment,” he said, and, stepping into a back office, called the head housekeeper.
There was work to be done. The main staircase and parlor hall were unswept because of the absence of the regular scrubwoman.
