Theodore Dreiser is one of the giants of early twentieth-century American literature, with his writings and career having received extensive discussion over the last 100 years. Of major interest to many commentators, given the importance both of his best fiction and of his cultural role as an icon of freedom of expression, is the question “what manner of man was he?”—what was the mix of temperament and experience and belief that produced the complex figure we know as Theodore Dreiser? Although biographers in particular have turned to the recollections of those who knew Dreiser well—his friends, lovers, and literary associates—for aid in answering this question, they have done so selectively, quoting a phrase here, retelling an anecdote there. Theodore Dreiser Recalled seeks to make these recollections available in all their fullness and richness. And given the provocative and stimulating nature of Dreiser's personality and the expressive skill of those recalling him, the recollections are frequently also brilliant evocations of the figure portrayed.

Although the bulk of the recollections in this book are reprinted from published sources, a sizeable number stem from letters written to Robert H. Elias in the 1940s and W. A. Swanberg in the early 1960s as they were preparing their biographies of Dreiser. Elias and Swanberg derived information from this correspondence and occasionally quoted from it, but the letters themselves contain much that they did not use and constitute a source of fresh insight into specific phases of Dreiser's life. (The letters are preserved in the Theodore Dreiser Collection at the Kroch Library of Cornell University and the W. A. Swanberg Papers at the University of Pennsylvania Library.)

The recollections of Dreiser by his contemporaries here collected have been divided into nine sections representing significant phases of Dreiser's life and work, with each section containing an interpretive preface. Each writer of an included recollection is provided a brief biography in the Biographical Glossary of Contributors, and Dreiser's activities pertinent to the nature of this book are traced in the Chronology. The Notes provide information about events and people, though when this information is well known, readily available, or apparent from material in the text, it is not supplied. The Bibliography presents a full listing of recollections of Dreiser, including those not contained in this volume.