An American Tragedy

An American Tragedy
Dust jacket of a 1926 edition published by Boni & Liveright
AuthorTheodore Dreiser
LanguageEnglish
GenreCrime fiction
Tragedy
PublisherBoni & Liveright
Publication date
December 17, 1925
Publication placeUS
813.52

An American Tragedy is a 1925 novel by American writer Theodore Dreiser. He began the manuscript in the summer of 1920, but a year later abandoned most of that text. It was based on the notorious murder of Grace Brown in 1906 and the trial of her lover, Chester Gillette. In 1923 Dreiser returned to the project, and with the help of his future wife Helen and two editor-secretaries, Louise Campbell and Sally Kusell, he completed the massive novel in 1925.[1] The book entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2021.

  1. ^ Dreiser, Theodore. An American Tragedy. Thomas P. Riggio, ed. New York: Library of America, 2003, pp. 966–67. ISBN 1-931082-31-6