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

Edgar Lee Masters
Spoon River Anthology
New York: Macmillan Company, 1915

First edition of Masters' book of poems inscribed by Masters to Theodore Dreiser: "For Theodore Dreiser/ artist and master/ Edgar Lee Masters/ Dec 10-'15"

Edgar Lee Masters
"Theodore the Poet"
In Spoon River Anthology (New York: Macmillan Company, 1915)

Edgar Lee Masters was a Chicago lawyer who composed poetry (which he published himself) when he wrote Dreiser in 1912 to praise a recent Dreiser publication, The Financier. In the first page of his letter, he notes that he had followed Dreiser's novels from the beginning, when he found himself absorbed by Sister Carrie. He continues: "You have such a capacity for detail and for the pure fact from which truth is secreted that you pile up in tireless fashion the evidence for your argument."

Edgar Lee Masters
Typed letter signed to Theodore Dreiser
3 December 1912