Theodore Dreiser

An American Tragedy is an American novel by Theodore Dreiser. Published in 1925, the book is the story of a young man, Clyde Griffiths, whose troubles with women and the law take him from his religious upbringing in Kansas City to the fictional town of Lycurgus, New York. Among Clyde's love interests are the materialistic Hortense Briggs, the charming farmer's daughter Roberta Alden, and the aristocratic Sondra Finchley. The book is naturalistic in style, containing subject matter such as religion, capital punishment and abortion. An American Tragedy has been adapted into opera, at the hands of composer Tobias Picker. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera starring Nathan Gunn in New York on Dec. 2, 2005. The well-known film A Place in the Sun is also based on An American Tragedy. Dreiser strongly disapproved of a 1931 film version directed by Josef von Sternberg. Sergei Eisenstein prepared a screenplay in the late 1920s.