“Oh, Carrie, Carrie! Oh, Blind Strivings Of The Human Heart!” 21. DREISER, Theodore. Sister Carrie. New York, 1900. Octavo, original red cloth, custom clamshell box. $12,500. Click for more info Exceptionally rare first edition of Dreiser’s controversial first novel. The Frank Hogan copy, with his bookplate. According to biographer W.A. Swanberg, Dreiser “seemed to have had no inkling that he was creating a revolutionarywork” (De Grazia, 101). He was aware, however, that others would find the novel controversial. Even before it was submitted he had made attempts to revise, or “clean up” his novel, at the urging of his first wife. Alarmed when he returned from Europe to find that his firm had taken the work, Franklin Doubleday “personally edited the proofs and insisted to Dreiser that all the profanities be removed and certain ‘suggestive’ passages altered” (DeGrazia, 103). The expurgated text made Carrie’s motivations incoherent, and bad reviews killed the novel on its first publication. H.L. Mencken spearheaded the novel’s critical reappraisal, and it came to be recognized as a groundbreaking and influential novel of American realism and naturalism. Doubleday’s records indicate, “the first edition consisted of 1008 copies, of which 129 were sent out for review, 465 were sold, and the balance, 423 copies, were turned over to [remainder house] J. F. Taylor & Company” (Orton, Dreiseriana, 17). This first edition is extremely rare. McDonald 28-32. Orton 16-19. Morocco-gilt bookplate of Frank J. Hogan, distinguished attorney and celebrated bibliophile. “His library was an appealing and highly personal selection of literary treasures” (Dickinson, 163-64). A beautiful and exceptional copy, with almost no wear to extremities and the cloth vivid and completely unfaded. “It is when the feet weary and hope seems vain that the heartaches and the longings arise.” February 2022 – 23 – Bauman Rare Books
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