Sister Carrie "A Strangely Strong Novel in a Queer Milieu"
Curated by Nancy M. Shawcross Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Pennsylvania

Photograph of Henry Mills Alden

The influential editor at Harper & Brothers, to whom Dreiser submitted the first version of Sister Carrie, thought favorably of the novel but knew that its subject matter was too frank for the firm.

Harper & Brothers
Typed carbon
2 May 1900

A copy of the report from Harper's reader concerning the first submitted draft of Sister Carrie: "His [Dreiser's] touch is neither firm enough nor sufficiently delicate to depict without offense to the reader the continued illicit relations of the heroine."