An American Tragedy

An American Tragedy is a tour de force, one of the most important novels in the American cannon. Ripped from the headlines, it follows Clyde Griffiths, a handsome, ambitious man whose religious upbringing has left him unprepared to pay the price required to realize the American Dream. It’s an ambitious novel that unflinchingly confronts the lie of the American Dream and myth of a classless society with opportunities for all, and an extraordinary crime novel that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Nothing short of monumental.-- Kirkus

The naturalist author Theodore Dreiser was obsessed with true crime, keeping track of articles and cases in the early 20th century. The product of this obsession was his 1925 novel, "An American Tragedy", based on a true crime story from New York’s Adirondack Mountains region that Dreiser followed. This novel was one of Dreiser’s most successful works and has often been hailed as his masterpiece.