The Financier »

THEODORE DREISER (1871—1945) is the author of Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, and An American Tragedy.

LARZER ZIFF is the editor of The Portable Benjamin Franklin and the Penguin Classics editions of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Stephen Crane. He is Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University.

A defiant critique of American capitalism

A MASTER OF GRITTY NATURALISM, Theodore Dreiser explores the corruption of the American dream in The Financier. Frank Cowperwood, a fiercely ambitious businessman, emerges as the very embodiment of greed as he relentlessly seeks satisfaction in wealth, women, and power. As Cowperwood deals and double-deals, betrays and is in turn betrayed, his rise and fall come to represent the American success story stripped down to brutal realities—a struggle for spoils without conscience or pity. Dreiser's 1912 classic remains an unsparing social critique as well as a devastating character study of one of the most unforgettable American businessmen in twentieth-century literature.