Yet somehow, despite continuous attack, Dreiser's best fiction continues to hold and move. In recent years, with the appearance of a major biography and a series of perceptive critical studies, the emphasis in Dreiser studies has shifted from defense or condemnation to an effort to come to grips with the elusive and complex nature of his temperament, ideas, and creative power.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance for American literary history of Dreiser's emergence as a major writer out of the special circumstances of his background. Until Dreiser, the typical American author was of Protestant Anglo- Saxon stock. And while not necessarily a college graduate (though many were), he nevertheless grew up either in a bookish setting or in one which permitted easy access to self-education. None of these conditions prevailed for Dreiser. His father, John Paul Dreiser, was a Catholic German immigrant who reached America in 1844 at the age of twenty-three. His mother, Sarah Schanab Dreiser, was of Bohemian Mennonite background (she became a Catholic on marrying John Paul Dreiser in 1851). The Dreiser family prospered for a time as John Dreiser pursued his career as a wool worker.
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