The four essays in this 1991 volume discuss approaches to Sister Carrie.

The American A social comedy about Christopher Newman, an American businessman on his first tour of Europe. Along the way, he finds a widow from an aristocratic French family.

The first masterpiece of the American naturalistic movement, Sister Carrie made its controversial debut in 1900. Condemned for its alleged immorality, the novel traces the fortunes of a small-town girl's rise from obscurity to fame.

Young Caroline Meeber leaves home for the first time and experiences work, love, and the pleasures and responsibilities of independence in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and New York.