Front matter

[A hand-writted note, transcribed below, appeared on the first page of this copy of the book. The etext transcriber cannot attest to its authenticity.]

My Dear Mr. Norris:

Owing as I do so very much to your earliest and most unqualified approval of this story in manuscript form it is my determination to inscribe a copy to you whether you will or no. That it reaches either you or the public "under cover" so soon is due entirely to you. Therefore refuse not a corner on the family table to the off-spring you so generously fostered; neither attempt to deny in the future that your sins do find you out.

With the most grateful remembrances I am,

Sincerely yours Dreiser

Sister Carrie

By Theodore Dreiser

NEW YORK Doubleday, Page & Co. 1900

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.

TO MY FRIEND ARTHUR HENRY WHOSE STEADFAST IDEALS AND SERENE DEVOTION TO TRUTH AND BEAUTY HAVE SERVED TO LIGHTEN THE METHOD AND STRENGTHEN THE PURPOSE OF THIS VOLUME.

SISTER CARRIE

Contents

Chapter I. The Magnet Attracting—A Waif Amid Forces

II. What Poverty Threatened—Of Granite And Brass

III. We Question of Fortune—Four-fifty a Week

IV. The Spendings of Fancy—Facts Answer With Sneers

V. A Glittering Night Flower—The Use of a Name

VI. The Machine And The Maiden—A Knight of To-day

VII. The Lure of the Material—Beauty Speaks for Itself

VIII. Intimations By Winter—An Ambassador Summoned

IX. Convention's Own Tinder-box—The Eye That Is Green

X. The Counsel of Winter—Fortune's Ambassador Calls

XI. The Persuasion of Fashion—Feeling Guards O'er Its Own

XII. Of the Lamps of the Mansions—The Ambassador Plea

XIII. His Credentials Accepted—A Babel of Tongues

XIV. With Eyes and Not Seeing—One Influence Wanes

XV. The Irk of the Old Ties—The Magic of Youth

XVI. A Witless Aladdin—The Gate To the World

XVII. A Glimpse Through the Gateway—Hope Lightens the Eye

XVIII. Just Over the Border—A Hail And Farewell

XIX. An Hour In Elfland—A Clamour Half Heard

XX. The Lure of the Spirit—The Flesh In Pursuit

XXI. The Lure of the Spirit—The Flesh In Pursuit

XXII. The Blaze of the Tinder—Flesh Wars With the Flesh

XXIII. A Spirit In Travail—One Rung Put Behind

XXIV. Ashes of Tinder—A Face At the Window

XXV. Ashes of Tinder—The Loosing of Stays

XXVI. The Ambassador Fallen—A Search For the Gate

XXVII. When Waters Engulf Us We Reach For a Star

XXVIII. A Pilgrim, An Outlaw—The Spirit Detained

XXIX. The Solace of Travel—The Boats of the Sea

XXX. The Kingdom of Greatness—The Pilgrim a Dream

XXXI. A Pet of Good Fortune—Broadway Flaunts Its Joys

XXXII. The Feast of Belshazzar—A Seer to Translate

XXXIII. Without the Walled City—The Slope of the Years

XXXIV. The Grind of the Millstones—A Sample of Chaff

XXXV. The Passing of Effort—The Visage of Care

XXXVI. A Grim Retrogression—The Phantom of Chance

XXXVII. The Spirit Awakens—New Search For the Gate

XXXVIII.In Elf Land Disporting—The Grim World Without

XXXIX.Of Lights and of Shadows—The Parting of Worlds

XL. A Public Dissension—A Final Appeal

XLI. The Strike

XLII. A Touch of Spring—The Empty Shell

XLIII. The World Turns Flatterer—An Eye In the Dark

XLIV. And This Is Not Elf Land—What Gold Will Not Buy

XLV. Curious Shifts of the Poor

XLVI. Stirring Troubled Waters

XLVII. The Way of the Beaten—A Harp In The Wind