A Traveler at FortyA Traveler at Forty ."rises completely out of the commonplace, and becomes something new, illuminating and heretical. It differs enormously from the customary travel books: it is not a mere description of places and people, but a revelation of their impingement upon an exceptional and almost eccentric personality." - H. L. Mencken "For everywhere [Dreiser] goes he watches people with a terrible curiosity about them that never rests until he has their secrets." - Sinclair Lewis The most productive period of Theodore Dreiser writing life began with the five months he spent in Europe between 1911 and 1912. A Traveler at Forty is the detailed account of his travels during that time, including the exploration of his ancestral roots in Germany. This is the text of the popular original edition as it was published in 1913. THEODORE DREISER (1871-1945) was a pre-eminent American novelist of the first half of the twentieth century. He believed that the experiences of working-class people striving for economic, emotional, and spiritual fulfillment were viable subjects for serious fiction, and for this reason he is regarded as an anatomist of the "American Dream." |
Contents
16 | |
24 | |
32 | |
VI | 47 |
VII | 57 |
A LONDON DRAWINGROOM | 66 |
SOME MORE ABOUT LONDON | 77 |
MARLOWE | 95 |
THE LURE OF GOLD | 264 |
WE GO TO | 275 |
NICE | 288 |
A FIRST GLIMPSE OF ITALY PAGE | 295 |
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ROME | 315 |
MRS Q AND THE BORGIA FAMILY | 327 |
THE ART OF SIGNOR TANNI | 337 |
AN AUDIENCE AT THE VATICAN | 345 |
A GIRL OF THE STREETS | 113 |
LONDON THE EAST | 128 |
ENTER SIR SCORP | 136 |
A CHRISTMAS CALL | 148 |
SMOKY ENGLAND | 171 |
SMOKY ENGLAND continued | 180 |
CANTERBURY | 188 |
EN ROUTE TO PARIS | 198 |
A MORNING IN PARIS | 225 |
THREE GUIDES | 238 |
THE POISON FLOWER | 247 |
MONTE CARLO | 255 |
THE CITY OF ST FRANCIS | 354 |
PERUGIA | 365 |
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE | 371 |
A NIGHT RAMBLE IN FLORENCE | 380 |
FLORENCE OF TODAY | 387 |
MARIA BASTIDA XLI VENICE XLII LUCERNE XLIII ENTERING GERMANY 371 380 387 | 398 |
A MEDIEVAL TOWN | 437 |
THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT 449 | 454 |
BERLIN | 462 |
THE NIGHTLIFE OF BERLIN | 474 |
ON THE WAY TO HOLLAND L AMSTERDAM 462 474 | 486 |
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Common terms and phrases
American anyhow artistic asked atmosphere Barfleur beautiful Berlin blue Bridgely Level Cæsar Café Café de Paris cars cathedral charming church Coblenz color crowded cuisine of France dark delicious delightful dinner door Dreiser dull England English eyes fancy feel finally Fishguard Florence France Frankfort Frans Hals French German girl gray green Haarlem hand hour houses impression interesting Italian Italy knew La Turbie lady light live London looked lovely Lucerne Mayen mind Miss monocle Monte Carlo morning never nice night once palace Paris Perugia Pisa quaint rain replied restaurants Rome seemed seen Sir Scorp smiled spirit stone strange streets suggestion talking temperament things thought thousand tion told took town train trees Venice walked walls woman women wonderful York
Popular passages
Page 5 - For myself, I accept now no creeds. I do not know what truth is, what beauty is, what love is, what hope is. I do not believe any one absolutely and I do not doubt any one absolutely. I think people are both evil and well-intentioned.
Page 4 - Eleven years ago I wrote my first novel, which was issued by a New York publisher and suppressed by him, Heaven knows why. For the same year they suppressed my book because of its alleged immoral tendencies, they published Zola's Fecundity and An Englishwoman's Love Letters.
Page 43 - I did not make my mind. I did not make my art. I cannot choose my taste except by predestined instinct, and yet here I am sitting in a comfortable English home as I write, commiserating the poor working-man.
Page 25 - There is in me the spirit of a lonely child somewhere and it clings pitifully to the hand of its big mama, Life, and cries when it is frightened; and then there is a coarse, vulgar exterior which fronts the world defiantly and bids all and sundry to go to the devil.
Page 4 - Maupassant at a distance — some of us — and it was quite an honor to have handsome sets of these men on our shelves, but mostly we had been schooled in the literature of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Charles Lamb and that refined company of English sentimental realists who told us something about life but not everything.