AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
by Theodore Dreiser

“Dusk — of a summer night. And the tall walls of the commercial heart of an American city of perhaps 400,000 inhabitants — such walls as in time may linger as a mere fable.” So begins Theodore Dreiser’s classic novel. It was once labelled the “worst-written great novel in the world”. The American Tragedy, first published in 1925, has withstood the test of time and stands out as one of the most enduring must-reads on that well-stocked bookshelf devoted to the souring of the American Dream. Based on an actual criminal case, the book tracks the life and travails of Clyde Griffiths, the son of a preacher later put on trial for murder. The screen adaptation, A Place in the Sun, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, proved to be equally popular and won a bagful of Oscars.

An American Tragedy is available at all leading bookstores.