University of Virginia Library

Dreiser's "Genius" in the Making: Composition and Revision
by
Louis J. Oldani

Inauguration of the Pennsylvania Edition of the complete works of Theodore Dreiser, which promises to rival such projects as the Mark Twain edition centered at Berkeley, is prompting explanation of the genesis, the composition and revision, and the printing and publishing history of each work in the Dreiser canon as needed to establish the definitive version of each text. The present paper accounts for the protracted stages of composition and revision that textual critics must assess to produce such an edition of The "Genius". The aim of this paper is to shed light on the first edition of The "Genius", published in October 1915, beginning with the earliest but abortive draft of 1900, proceeding to the complete holograph of 1910-1911, successive typescripts and revisions, and, finally, key differences between galley proofs and the published novel.

Holograph

Rereading the extensive correspondence between Dreiser and himself, H. L. Mencken inquired on 23 February 1943: "[O]n August 8, 1911, you speak of 'The Financier' as your fourth book and hint that there was a third running ahead of it, just after 'Jennie Gerhardt'. Did this so-called third book ever have any real existence?"[1] "In 1903," Dreiser replied, "while dreaming of doing Jennie Gerhardt, I wrote 32 chapters of what was to be The 'Genius', and in 1907 or 1908, tore them up and burned them in order to do Jennie Gerhardt, etc. etc." (Dreiser-Mencken 2: 684). In December 1910 Dreiser had begun a second version of The "Genius". In a letter to Mencken of 24 February 1911, Dreiser had stated, "I have just finished one book—Jennie Gerhardt—and am half through with another [The "Genius"]" (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 63). He added that he expected to continue "this book game" until he had written four or five, "after which unless I am enjoying a good income from them I will quit." "Give the game a fair trial: you have got the goods," Mencken advised, "and soon or late the fact will penetrate the skulls of those who have anything within. . . . The money be damned" (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 64). Dreiser answered, "I sometimes think my desire is for expression that is entirely too frank for this time—hence that I must pay the price of being unpalatable. The next book [The "Genius"] will tell" (10 March 1911, Dreiser-Mencken 1: 65).[2]

On 24 March 1911, Dreiser wrote Mary Annabel Fanton Roberts, who had helped to edit Jennie Gerhardt, that The "Genius" was "nearing completion."[3] On 10 April, he wrote Mencken that he hoped to conclude the manuscript by 1 May, noting on 17 April that it "draws to a close. Its grim, I'm sorry to state, but life-like" (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 67). On 28 April he mentioned to Mencken that he was "finishing" The "Genius" (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 71). "I completed the third book sometime ago—The Genius— 425,000 words," he wrote Mrs. Roberts on 26 June (UPDC). And to Mencken on 8 August he wrote, "Yes, book three is done & being typewritten slowly" (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 73). The typing must have progressed at a glacial pace. Though in a 15 October letter to William C. Lengel, formerly an editorial assistant of Dreiser's on the Delineator, Dreiser claimed that The "Genius" was "now lying on ice, all nicely typewritten," on 17 October he informed Margery Dell that he was still awaiting part of the typescript and on the same day assured Mencken that the full typescript would soon be ready for him.[4] After the abortive start which Dreiser later recalled as an event of

1903, he had begun again to write The "Genius" late in 1910, shortly after his calamitous affair with Thelma Cudlipp.[5] According to his letter to Mrs. Roberts, he completed the holograph draft before 26 June 1911, probably in May. And during the summer of 1911 Decima Vivian set to work on the typescript.

Prepublication Reactions

Wishing to sample responses to his first completed draft of The "Genius", Dreiser got Eleanora R. O'Neill, Barbara Langford, Lillian Rosenthal, and, later, Anna P. Tatum to read the typescript. O'Neill, the Boston book reviewer, praised Dreiser's portrayal of characters "in broad master stokes," but complained of a surfeit of details.[6] "[M]erely suggest things with your vigorous strokes—don't explain and draw every line," she advised. Langford and Rosenthal, who had influenced Dreiser's reshaping of Jennie Gerhardt from a happy to a tragic ending, acclaimed The "Genius," which Rosenthal nonetheless believed could be "cut to advantage."[7] She remarked further: "I think you need to introduce . . . a reason for this man's peculiar passion for a certain type of woman." This time, however, Dreiser did not follow Rosenthal's suggestion.

On 20 December 1912, Dreiser arrived in Chicago for a stay lasting until 10 February 1913, to investigate the phase of Charles Tyson Yerkes's career pertinent to his writing of The Titan. During that visit, according to Lengel's 1962 testimony, Dreiser gave Lengel a carbon copy of The "Genius" typescript "to read and pass on to [Floyd] Dell, Lucian Cary [participant in the Chicago literary revolution], and Ray Long," editor of Red Book (Swanberg 166, 549 n. 9). Moreover, Donald Pizer mentions, Dreiser left behind the typescript brought especially for Lengel's perusal "to be read by Edgar Lee Masters . . . among others" (Novels 133-134). A question occurs about Lengel's 1962 recollection inasmuch as on 14 February 1913 Lengel wrote asking Dreiser for a copy of The "Genius" so that he could begin excerpting a serial as Dreiser had requested (UPDC). Shortly thereafter he informed Dreiser: "Have worked over 'The Genius' all day and think I've got the line on the serial. Hope I can get the remaining chapters soon" (undated, UPDC). After cursory examination of the story, Lengel turned over the typescript, as Dreiser wished, to Cary and to Dell (Lengel to Dreiser, 21 Feb. 1913, UPDC). Apparently Lengel had received this duplicate copy of the typescript through Ray Long, whose estimate Lengel inaccurately summarized in a letter of 21 February: "Long says you have produced a master piece that will in itself

make you famous, if nothing else will (UPDC). In a letter of 7 March, however, Lengel expressed concern following a meeting with Cary and Dell, each of whom promised to send Dreiser a "complete outline" of his opinions on The "Genius", opinions "of such a nature that I do not think that I had better do any work on the book until I hear from you after you get these communications" (UPDC). On 15 March, Lengel wrote Dreiser that Dell had returned The "Genius"; and on 20 March, "I am reading 'The Genius' with painstaking care and want to finish it before writing you fully" (UPDC). By 28 March, Lengel had completed his reading and, as Dreiser had instructed, given the copy to Masters (Lengel to Dreiser, 29 March 1913, UPDC).

On 31 March, Lengel reported to Dreiser his reaction to "The Genius," noting that his "brash statements" were "written with honesty and sincerity" and also anguish.[8] Lengel had recognized living originals in the various characters as well as the troubled state of mind in which Dreiser wrote the story. "When I think of . . . the pain it caused you in chronicling the story, . . . I am tempted to say, publish it." But Lengel expressed the conviction that a five-year delay in publication might enable Dreiser to gain "a different perspective" on the subject. Furthermore, Lengel found that the plot "lacks cohesiveness" as events of life do, that the characters seem bereft of purpose and relationship, that Witla is neither an admirable nor a sympathetic figure. Dreiser rejoined that most reactions so far had been favorable (see Lengel to Dreiser, 19 April 1913, UPDC). On 9 April, however, Dreiser received Long's critique: namely, that "The Genius" seemed "too much a blue print," "went into details of life in a country town . . . which could not possibly grip a reader," then "was told in a sort of brutality" after Witla reaches the city (UPDC).

This most autobiographical of Dreiser's novels evoked responses of approval from women who read the first full draft even as it wakened objections from the earliest male readers. When Dreiser sought the judgment of Anna P. Tatum, she commended the "form of the book," which struck her as "identical" with its message (Tatum to Dreiser, 12 April 1913, UPDC). She described the novel as the most "searching . . . portrayal of an unhappy sex relationship . . . in any literature" and credited it with "'laying bare the human heart' . . . with a kind of shameless primitive Biblical solemnity." The opinion of the handsome Miss Tatum, "a scholar who could quote Verlaine in French, knew all the great novels (putting his own near the top)," carried weight with Dreiser (Swanberg 162). Decima Vivian, too, must have sounded convincing when she commented to Dreiser that in "The Genius," by his focus on "the usual, the typical" in American life, he might fulfill a prophecy attributed to Arnold Bennett that Dreiser would write the great American novel.[9]

Ancestral Descent of the Text

Whether with dissent or praise, readers of the typescript were reacting to a different version of The "Genius" than was published in 1915. Yet, as Dreiser remarked in 1943, neither the typescript nor the extant holograph contains the original form of the story. In situating the first attempt in 1903, however, Dreiser's memory may have been approximate. Early in the summer of 1900, elated by Frank Norris's advocacy and Walter Hines Page's promise to publish Sister Carrie, Dreiser had begun an autobiographical novel called "The Rake" and by December had written thirty or more chapters.[10] Sometime in July 1900, uncertain that Doubleday, Page and Company would keep its promise, he confided to Arthur Henry the hope that "my forthcoming book ["The Rake"], (which, if I can raise the money I shall write this winter)," might induce Doubleday to "publish Sister Carrie and preserve my credit" ([23] July 1900, Letters 1: 53). Dreiser added that he would leave no room for queries in this next novel: "Those who have feelings may prepare to have them shaken. It shall be out of my heart truly." After having completed thirty or more chapters by the end of 1900, Dreiser stopped work on "The Rake" and turned to creating Jennie Gerhardt and to other writing. Correspondence and other records of 1903 contain no hint of a return to work on "The Rake" or the start of another autobiographical novel. Only after a decade, in December 1910, did Dreiser direct his energies to another version of the autobiographical novel.

In 1972 Robert Elias commented on Dreiser's original version of The "Genius", but did not conjecture, as did the writer of a dissertation of the same year, that the small yellowed sheets of paper on which Dreiser wrote this version "lend probability to the 1903 composition date" recalled by Dreiser or, perhaps more precisely, to 1900: "The small yellow[ed] sheets are the kind of paper on which Sister Carrie was written."[11] "The Rake" of 1900 survives, Thomas P. Riggio points out, "on the small yellow sheets . . . in the manuscript of The History of Myself, vol. 2," A Book About Myself, for the most part written in ink on 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheets of white paper but "contain[ing] as well," Donald Pizer has observed, "lengthy sections on small yellow sheets, written in pencil, which are pasted in the larger, white sheet holograph."[12] "Dreiser used these yellow sheets, on which he wrote Sister Carrie and the chapters of Jennie [Gerhardt] he finished in 1901-2, only in this period," Riggio explains. "When he returned to Jennie in 1910, he began using the standard-size typewriter paper he would continue to write on for the rest of his career." These penciled portions are to such a degree autobiographical

that Dreiser inserted them into A Book About Myself with no other revision than substitution of the first-person pronoun in place of "Eugene." Thus Dreiser did not feed the chapters of "The Rake" to the fire as he reported in 1943, but incorporated most of them into the account of his newspaper days.

The extant typescript of The "Genius", like the holograph copy and the published text, has as its hero Eugene Witla, the artist. Unlike the published version, but in accordance with the holograph, it contains the reconciliation and marriage of Witla and Suzanne Dale. Whether any part of the two complete typescripts of The "Genius" in the University of Pennsylvania Dreiser Collection is a remnant of the 1911 typescript or whether they date in full from 1913 or 1914 is a matter of debate. Elias posits a 1913 typescript prepared after Dreiser had supposedly revised the one typed by Decima Vivian in 1911, but no longer in existence ("Bibliography" 31). Citing Dreiser's letter to Mencken of 22 June 1914, Joseph Katz has stated: "If Dreiser was not simply stalling Mencken, 'two complete typewritten copies' of the novel had been lost and were slowly being replaced in June 1914, when they were 'nearly recopied.'"[13]

Loss of the typescript read in Chicago by Long, Cary, Dell, and Lengel was the complicating incident in the ancestral descent of The "Genius" from manuscript to published text. When Lengel had read the typescript, he turned the copy over to Edgar Lee Masters before 29 March 1913 (Lengel to Dreiser, 29 March 1913, UPDC). But owing to his wife's illness, Masters had no opportunity to read it. Masters "wants to read it badly, but says if you are in an especial hurry he will let me have it to return to you at once," Lengel wrote Dreiser on 27 April 1913 (UPDC). On 2 May, Lengel mailed the typescript to Dreiser, mentioning in a note on 3 May, "Masters seemed surprised that you should want it back, as he said you had told him you have another copy of the book in N.Y." (UPDC). The mailed copy did not reach Dreiser. Lengel had the Post Office attempt to trace the package, laying the blame to his own "carelessness" in not having sent it express (Lengel to Dreiser, 15 May 1913, UPDC). Dreiser graciously accepted this loss both of his typescript and of Lengel's serial editing. "The Post Office made a careful search," Lengel recalled, "and Dreiser decided that it had been received by his wife and destroyed. She hated the work, as well she might."[14] Dreiser assured Lengel that the loss "was not vital because there was a copy in the safe at Harper's." However, Dreiser's letter of 24 February 1913 to Major F. T. Leigh, vice president of Harper and Brothers, then Dreiser's publisher, raises the question of when, if ever, a typescript was entrusted to the firm: "As I told you, the ms. of The Genius is now in Chicago but will be back in a month. When it comes back I will turn it over to you" (UPDC). Nine months later, on 6

December 1913, Dreiser gave a typescript of "The Genius" to the Century Company as security against a small loan (Swanberg 170). One can only guess where the first typescript was in mid-July 1913, when Dreiser wrote the following ambiguous note to Mencken, who was awaiting a script of "The Genius": "The second & only remaining copy (type) of the Genius was lost in the mails. Loss $1350. A recopying is necessary. When it is done will let you know."[15]

To Mencken's queries of "What progress with 'The Genius'?" Dreiser replied on 25 March 1914: "I am preparing The Genius of which more later."[16] Since November 1913, Mencken had been urging Dreiser to publish The Titan as soon as possible after A Traveler at Forty; "And let that story of the artist (When am I going to see it?) follow quickly" [16 November 1913], Dreiser-Mencken 1: 125-126). "Let me see 'The Genius' as soon as possible," Mencken pressed (10 June and 26 June 1914, Dreiser-Mencken 1: 142-144). "The Genius of which I lost two complete typewritten copies worth $1750 all told is nearly recopied," Dreiser explained on 22 June 1914 (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 144). "I am to try to edit it next month—and I am such a poor editor." "All of this 2nd typing of The Genius isn't here yet," Dreiser added on 2 July (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 145). "When it comes and I have had a chance to run over it myself I will send it on. I am most anxious to know what you think and that long before I publish it." "Send on The Genius whenever it's ready," Mencken requested.[17]

"Is there any chance of getting a few chapters of 'The Genius' for our Dec. no.?" Mencken asked shortly after he and George Jean Nathan had got editorial control of The Smart Set.[18] On 17 September 1914, Dreiser responded:

Mencken replied: "It's too bad we can't get a hack at the Genius. We don't want a serial, but merely an episode."[19] In fact, Dreiser had already arranged for serial editing by Lengel, who had written Dreiser on 18 April 1914: "I am very enthusiastic about the prospects of doing that work on The Genius" (UPDC). Mencken insisted on publishing an episode from The "Genius" because he envisioned it, in contrast to Dreiser's recent plays, as "a return to C major—that is, to the Sister Carrie-Jennie Gerhardt—The Titan style."[20] On 8 November 1914, Mencken reminded Dreiser, "Don't forget that I am to get a reading of 'The Genius'" (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 164).

Lengel's serial cutting was under way on 10 November 1914, when Dreiser commented to Mencken:

In this letter, Dreiser expressed hesitation about sending Mencken the copy marked "for serial purposes" ("Nothing is cut out—only portions marked out") because he had not yet done his own editing for book publication: "I have been going over one copy but I am not near done and when I am it will be somewhat better pulled together than it is now and better written."

"Let me have the pencilled copy, by all means," Mencken replied, promising to bear in mind its provisional character (12 November 1914, Dreiser-Mencken 1: 165). "By Adams express, today," wrote Dreiser on 30 November, "prepaid I sent you chapters 1 to 66 (I believe) of the typewritten mss—of "The Genius', 2nd carbon, unrevised."[22] "In all likelihood," Joseph Katz inferred, "the marked-up script Mencken did not get to see is the one surviving in the Van Pelt Library [of the University of Pennsylvania]" ("Dummy: The 'Genius'": 337). Dreiser's use of "unrevised" refers here, however, not to serial cutting, but to Dreiser's own projected editing for book publication, as he indicated in the letter of 10 November. That Mencken received the typescript penciled for serial publication is clear from Dreiser's letter of 8 December:

"Surely I'll be glad to go through the proposed serial," Mencken answered (9 December 1914, Dreiser-Mencken 1: 168-169). "The crude cuts, of course, leave the thing as it stands rather disjointed, but I think I grasp its general drift." And on 10 December, Dreiser responded:

On 12 December, Dreiser sent Mencken the second half of the marked typescript.[25] By this halfway point, Mencken had offered two "criticisms": first, "Witla's artistic progress is under-described . . . down to his New York days"; second, "there is no such word as 'alright'" (9 December 1914, Dreiser-Mencken 1: 168-169). In fact, the misspelling was a corruption introduced, not by Dreiser, but by the typist. Dreiser wrote "all right" in the holograph. As a remedy for what he considered insufficient development of Witla's artistic growth prior to his New York days, Mencken suggested: "Start him in Chicago, cutting out the Alexandria part, and then go back to it briefly later on, a la Joseph Conrad" (Dreiser-Mencken 1: 168-169).

Shortly before receiving Mencken's "criticisms," Dreiser had alerted Mencken to the distinctive punctuation of the title, not yet, however, in its final form. "Please note that the title, 'The Genius' is quoted," Dreiser wrote on 30 November 1914;

This appears to be Dreiser's first written statement to account for use of quotation marks in the title. On 5 January 1915, Mencken personally returned the typescript to Dreiser.[27] It was then that he orally delivered his preliminary "kicks and suggestions" regarding The "Genius", but no record of his comments was made. Nor did Dreiser carry out the restructuring suggested in Mencken's 9 December 1914 letter.

Such was the context of circumstances immediately preceding revision of the typescript for publication by the John Lane Company. At the center of these events was the text of The "Genius", extant in several forms in the Theodore Dreiser Collection of the University of Pennsylvania: the complete holograph copy, on white paper 8 1/2 by 11 inches ("Handwritten MS." [Boxes 156 through 159, formerly 79 to 83]); two typescripts ("First Typed Copy" [Boxes 162 and 163, formerly 84 and 85] and "Complete MS.—First Carbon Copy" [Boxes 160 and 161, formerly 87]; and a third typescript, "from which [the] first edition was printed," but missing Chapters 1 through 31 ("Revised

Typescript [Incomplete]" [Box 164, formerly 86a and 86b]). The notation on the third typescript is in Dreiser's hand, including "(Chapters 1 to 31—missing)." In the case of any given chapter, the three typewritten copies are the result of the same typewriting; but the whole is not necessarily the product of a single typist and clearly not of the same typewriter. The type is pica in Chapters 1 through 31, becomes elite in Chapter 32 and remains so until Chapter 81, in which it again becomes pica. As insertion of their initials in the holograph copy testifies, at least two typists produced the 1911 typescript of The "Genius": D. V. (Decima Vivian), who began the task and whose initials appear in notes in the first thirty chapters; and E. H. W. (unidentified), whose initials appear in notations in later chapters. Owing to the lack of additional evidence, it is impossible to establish that either or both typists produced the 1914 typescript. For the 1914 typescript, the change in typeface suggests either the hand of more than one typist or extensive changes exacted by Dreiser during the course of one typist's work: for example, Angela's hair is "red" in the manuscript, "bright" in the first thirty chapters of the typescript, and "red" in subsequent chapters.

A word on the correspondence between contents and labels of Boxes 160, 161, 162, and 163 (formerly 84, 85, and 87). Boxes 162 and 163 (84 and 85) do not contain, as indicated, entirely a ribbon copy of the text, nor do Boxes 160 and 161 (87) contain simply a carbon copy.[28] In stacking the three copies of The "Genius", Dreiser or an assistant probably was not concerned about keeping separate the ribbon copy from the first and second carbon copies, but indifferently mixed the three forms. The designation of Boxes 160 and 161 (87) as "Complete MS." is correct, however: copy of Chapters 19-21 and 28-31, missing from Box 162 (84), is not lacking in Box 160 (87).

Revision of the Manuscript

Dreiser did not use the typewriter in composition.[29] He wrote in ink, the lines of legible words evenly spaced on white paper. Multiple revisions, by himself and by others, were part of his method, stemming, perhaps, from the practice learned in journalism of turning over one's writing to be reworked by an assistant city editor.[30] Comparison of the manuscript or holograph copy of The "Genius" with the typescript in Boxes 162 (84) and 163 (85) and, when necessary, in Boxes 160 and 161 (87) reveals a large number of changes. On the holograph and also the "First Typed Copy," the title appears without

quotation marks. A second cover sheet only in the holograph copy bears Dreiser's handwritten note: "Alternate Titles. Would those who read this manuscript kindly indicate here any other title which may occur to them as appropriate and forceful. Or check the one they prefer. This Matter of Marriage, Now. The Story of Eugene. Eugene Witla. The Hedonist. The Dreamer. The Sensualist." Like the holograph, the "First Typed Copy," but not the "First Carbon Copy," contains Dreiser's cautionary word following the title-page. The author asks of each reader of "this story" that she or he not pass it "indiscriminately into the hands of the too young. Its psychology and philosophy should forfend it against general and immature reading but there are those who read only for suggestive incidents." Of "the elders" who might be offended by action diverging from current conventions, he appeals that they "suspend judgment until the last page is reached."[31]

Many variants in the typescript resulted from errors, omissions, or alterations by the typist.[32] One of the most pervasive variants in the typescript is the alteration of Dreiser's paragraphing in the holograph, either by dividing a single paragraph into two or more or by combining separate paragraphs into one.[33] In addition to the misspelling of "all right," the typist introduced the incorrect "Strathmeyer" for "Shottmeyer" and "Smith" for "Smite."[34] The order of items in a series is sometimes transposed in the typescript, words and phrases omitted, punctuation replaced.[35] Such changes are usually of minor significance; but in instances in which the altered passage was not excised in subsequent revision, the original form is well-nigh always restored in the published version.

Weightier changes also appear in the typescript, however, as a result either of Dreiser's penciled revisions in the holograph or of his supposed revisions of the 1911 typescript (see Elias, "Bibliography": 30-34). A striking instance of such revision occurs in Chapter 34 of the typescript and of the holograph (Book 2, Chapter 3, of the published text). The typescript incorporates material penciled by Dreiser on the holograph concerning the relationship of the newly married Witla and Angela—namely, the expression of his worry and of her dissatisfaction over Witla's not having informed his family and friends of the wedding. In Chapter 40 (Book 2, Chapter 9), the typescript omits Eugene's contemptuous thoughts about Angela's knowing little outside conventional rules, a passage which Dreiser had marked for deletion on the holograph. The typescript omits from Chapter 43 (Book 3,

Chapter 11) three brief paragraphs, crossed out by Dreiser in the holograph, which present Angela's wish that Witla be morally impeccable as well as Witla's problem of how long he can endure his failing marriage. The typescript similarly omits from Chapter 48 (Book 2, Chapter 17) a paragraph cancelled by Dreiser which expresses Witla's reflection that it will be easier to bear the siege of breakdown alone, without Angela to feel sorry for, and his sense of relief that there are no children to care for. Another alteration from the manuscript is the supplying in Chapter 104 (Book 3, Chapter 28) of Witla's rumination on his recent conduct, including his rueful attitude toward Suzanne. Pointing out discrepancies between the holograph and what he calls "the 1913 typescript," Elias cites in the manuscript further conversations between Witla and Althea Johns, the Christian Science practitioner, further letters between Witla and Suzanne, etc. ("Bibliography": 34-44, especially 38). Elias interprets such deletions mainly as authorial comment containing no dramatic or thematic force. Yet some of the revisions which Elias notes and each of the changes cited from my own investigation involves Dreiser's characterization of Witla and of Angela either by clarifying motive or by striking out an explanation or too close an autobiographical parallel, the latter seemingly a step in the transformation of lived experience into literary form.

More salient than the discrepancies between typescript and holograph, however, is what they hold in common, in particular the happy ending of Witla's story. For one thing, they present Witla's personal acceptance of Christian Science and the spiritual nature of reality. For another, remaining haunted by the image of Suzanne, herself still deeply affected, Witla at first resents her for having abandoned him in the climax of passion. Later, as his practice of art distracts him from bitter feelings, he writes to Suzanne to explain his altered view of life, his recognition of his selfishness, and his realization that desire is not everything. He also asks that she either return or destroy his letters. Subsequently, they meet on Fifth Avenue at Thirty-Fourth Street. Smiling but aloof, Witla "had himself well in hand." As they part, he aches a little; Suzanne is left wondering about his feeling for her. A month afterward, she visits his studio in Montclair, where "unregenerate, love-tortured" Witla asks, "'You love me then?'" "'Ah, yes! yes! yes!'" Suzanne replies, and "with that old time cry that brought back a lost paradise to him she yielded herself to his eager . . . arms."[36] Witla and Suzanne marry six months later and achieve unity also of soul ("L'Envoi"). His interest in idealism has become part of his pursuit of beauty. Life for him "was no longer the thing it had once seemed. It was calmer, sweeter. 'There is a ruling power,' he said. 'It rules all—is all, and it is not malicious.'"

Comparison of typescript and holograph yields information on a further matter. In letters, Dreiser mentioned his deficiency in knowledge of grammar and syntax. To May Calvert Baker, a former teacher, he wrote on 15 February 1917: "Do you recall that I couldn't learn grammar? I don't know a

single thing about it yet" (UPDC; also Dreiser to Baker, 23 July 1917, UPDC). To Robert James Ullman, who complained of grammatical errors in the published "Genius", Dreiser wrote: Yet Dreiser's slips in grammar and spelling during the writing of the holograph seem inconsequential. In Chapters 10 and 33, for instance, he uses "your" for "you're," fails to use the possessive case in Chapter 13, and misspells "across" with two c's in Chapter 20. In Chapter 79, he misspells "divine" "devine"; in Chapter 80, he uses e instead of a in "thousand"; in Chapters 80, 90, and 91, he punctuates with a period when a question mark is needed. In sum, this is evidence that Dreiser was maladept neither at spelling nor at grammar, though his typists were. The typescript contains several times the number of errors in the holograph.

Sequential Revision of the Typescript

Tracing the chronology of revision, one notes that Dreiser's editing appears not only in the holograph, but also on the typescript altered for publication of the first edition of The "Genius" (Box 164, formerly Boxes 86a and 86b). In addition to Dreiser's, however, other revisory hands can be identified on this typescript, notably those of Frederic Chapman, English reader for and confidential adviser to John Lane, the British publisher, and Floyd Dell, formerly an editor of the "Friday Literary Review" of the Chicago Evening Post and then an editor of The Masses. Since this typescript lacks Chapters 1 through 31, comparison of the text of those chapters in the holograph and in the other two typescripts with that of the galleys of The "Genius", which reproduce the revised typescript of Box 164 (86a and 86b), enables one to infer the general pattern of changes made, though not, in the absence of Chapters 1 through 31, the specific roles of the revisors of those chapters. The rest of the revised typescript, on the other hand, from Chapter 32 through "L'Envoi," permits one to eavesdrop on a group effort in revision. To one familiar with his handwriting, Dreiser's alterations, made mainly in black or blue pencil and blue crayon, are most easily identifiable, but least extensive. Chapman's alterations, in small clear letters, often singly inscribed, are uniformly in red ink. The content of some of Chapman's comments makes them unmistakably his: "This side at any rate pastels are not done on canvas" (381); "The sentence in brackets is incomprehensible, to an Englishman at any rate" (675); "Simile meaningless to an English ear" (744). Dell's alterations, made in separate instances in green ink, black pencil, and typewriting, can be identified (as can Chapman's) by reference to the handwriting in his letters to Dreiser.[37]

A great deal has been said about Dreiser's method of revising his work. But the services of editors who excised thousands of words to improve the novel is a point usually stressed, sometimes with the claim that Dreiser restored most of the deletions. Collation of the revised typescript with the galleys and with the published text of The "Genius" shows that Dreiser accepted the majority of cuts recommended by Chapman and by Dell. "Being a prolific and voluminous writer with a tendency to repetition," remarked Helen Dreiser, "Dreiser was convinced of the need for cutting, and although he himself had had wide experience as an editor, he often said a fresh eye . . . was . . . helpful to him."[38] But, she added, Dreiser was not quick to make or accept changes in his style or structure.

Dreiser's own editing of the "Revised Typescript [Incomplete]," most of it carried out from fall into winter in 1914, is more abundant than his manuscript editing and has greater effect on theme and structure.[39] His typescript revisions most notably include a large number of additions and deletions of words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs; numerous substitutions of words and phrases; frequent combination or restructuring or division of paragraphs (sometimes restoring them to their shape in the holograph); and, most important, such rewriting as transformed the original happy ending into Witla's grim experience of losing Suzanne and being at last, not converted to idealism, but "only hardened intellectually and emotionally—tempered for life and work" (734). When textural, these alterations seem attempts to conserve words and details, to supply more accurate diction, and to make blocks of sentences coincide with blocks of meaning, without modifying the overall design of the novel. When architectonic, however, as in the reshaped ending, they represent Dreiser's effort to bring fictional experience into closer relationship with life as he understood it.

Dreiser's revisions of the title occurred after those of the typescript. He originally spelled the title without quotation marks, as in the holograph and the "First Typed Copy" of 1914. He used no quotation marks in the title until around 30 November 1914, when he enclosed both words of the title in a pair of double quotation marks.[40] The final version of the title he adopted by 4 August 1915, when he wrote on the verso of page 576 of what he inscribed as "Revised Typewritten Copy from which 1st Edition was printed":

"Received, J. J. Little & Ives Co., Aug. 4 12:55 PM 1915" (Box 164, formerly 86b). The "Genius" was published on 1 October 1915.[41]

Instances in the revised typescript of Dreiser's effort to employ more precise diction are found, for example, in his penciling in "canvas" for "drawing" and "painting" for "pastel" (as Chapman advised).[42] More often, Dreiser added to the text some corroborative action or illumination of motive: renewed push in Angela's drive to improve her husband's conduct; presentation of White's open-armed reception of Witla's disaffected staff members and his hostile attitude concerning Witla's position in the United Magazine Corporation; Witla's remark to Suzanne that her love has made him "the artist again," but her failure to understand his meaning.[43] After the affair with Suzanne is under way, Dreiser added a sentence to clarify Witla's decision not to desert Angela financially, but to live with her no longer. After two chapters calling for little revision—Chapter 84 (Book 3, Chapter 9), in which Angela discovers Suzanne in Witla's arms in the Witla apartment, and Chapter 85 (Book 9, Chapter 10), the resulting verbal and emotional tug of war between Witla and Angela—Dreiser added a sizeable handwritten passage at the beginning of Chapter 86 (3, 11). The insertion indicates that by dawn of the morning following Angela's discovery, none of the three is further along the way toward sorting thoughts, that each dimly anticipates tragedy looming ahead. It also probes the attitude of each: Witla's terror lest Suzanne undergo a change of heart; Suzanne's easier cast of mind, believing that such situations ameliorate of their own accord if one lets them and that, "if it must be," she can live without Witla; Angela's sense of shock and despair. In Witla's misapprehension, upon finding Suzanne in her coat, that "she had been intending to slip away without seeing him any more," Dreiser reveals how little Witla knew Suzanne. In other additions, Dreiser emphasizes Witla's intimation of the folly and danger of his marital infidelity and elucidates Witla's double financial jeopardy in the set-back to his real estate investment. He added vivid detail to the scenes of Angela's Caesarean section as well as a note of relief in the sentence, "But the child was crying too, healthily." Each addition seems to carry its charge of meaning and feeling, each designed to prepare the reader for the newly darkened ending of the story.

On the other hand, Dreiser made numerous deletions from the typescript.[44] But more evident than concern about economy of words is attention to credibility, as in Dreiser's removal of several sentences indicating the respect in which celebrated persons held Witla's early art work. He crossed out the names of Howells, Twain, William James, and others. Again, he

excised such authorial comment as "Pages and pages . . . might be devoted to just such tirades as these," to begin a chapter instead in medias res: "For hours that night . . . the storm continued." He rejected comment explaining once again the breakup of Witla and Angela's relationship: a retrospective view, for example, of how Witla had learned through his sister's accidental discovery that Angela is older than he, of Angela's pleasing traits but failure finally to harmonize with Witla's moods and feelings, of Witla's past amours and weakness for girls of eighteen, and of Angela's mistaken belief that Witla would feel irrevocably tied by the marriage vow. The list could be extended.

Though in many instances the reshaping was minor, it was Dreiser's rewriting that made the most determinative impact on The "Genius".[45] He recast a paragraph, for example, describing Witla's reactions to London and to Paris by sharpening his sense of contrast between the cities. He rewrote a scene, making Witla weigh more cautiously the disquieting image of Suzanne in a photograph, a medium that Witla viewed as too often deceptive in capturing only a flattering surface. In Chapter 95—a scissors-and-paste chapter with a narrow majority of the copy in typescript, the rest in Dreiser's hand—he changed Witla's firm determination to regain Suzanne into a drifting and temporizing attitude about how to cope with obstacles to that goal. But his transformation of the novel's ending was the decisive alteration, rescuing the story from the experience of marital bliss for a man who had inexplicably converted from skepticism, antinomianism, and hedonism to belief in Christian Science and a style of behavior about which one can only guess. This major revision brought the final events and characterization into accord with the realistic perspective of the foregoing chapters and of Dreiser's theory of fiction. "I am for the type of fiction that confines its attempted interpretations to not only the possibilities but the probabilities," he explained in "The Scope of Fiction," "and I have no reading patience with anything that does not compel me by the charm of its verisimilitude."[46]

After Dreiser, the next major revisor of the typescript of The "Genius" was Frederic Chapman. Chapman wrote Dreiser on 26 May 1914 thanking him for "an advance copy of The Titan with such a flattering inscription" and asking to see copy of Dreiser's next book "before it goes to the printer" (UPDC). He added that he valued "getting the sense of a great personality" and "its environment" rather than "comparative trifles," but placed at Dreiser's disposal his extensive knowledge of "minutiae, little side things that tell in the matter of truth to period." On 8 July 1915, Chapman returned to Dreiser the first fifty chapters of the typescript of The "Genius" with his revisions, and on 15 July, Chapters 51 through 75, with the promise that the next mail would bring the remainder. "I have not altered . . . expressions put in the mouths of your characters," Chapman stated in the letter of 8 July (UPDC). "But when the text is purely narrative, . . . I have endeavoured to bring it more into accordance with traditional English with the fewest

possible changes." One of Chapman's duties for John Lane was to insure that English readers not suffer bemusement in encountering The "Genius". The text had to be so edited as to be intelligible to British as well as American readers. That achieved, the British publisher could print an overrun of sheets, publish the novel in the United States, and ship the overrun to England for binding and publication there.

Chapman's red-ink revisions appear on nearly every page of the typescript and include a multiplicity of spelling corrections, frequent substitutions of words and phrases, and deletions of sentences, paragraphs, and series of paragraphs. Having "corrected" a correctly spelled word on the typescript, he noted in the margin (499): "See what a pass your typist has brought me to!" A great number of passages in the script are enclosed in square brackets, "passages," wrote Chapman on 15 July, "that I suggest you should cut out altogether." Chapman wished that he could have marked additional passages for deletion,

Key objects of Chapman's pruning included Dreiser's authorial rumination and interpretation. He pared such passages so that in given instances characters' words and actions must speak for themselves. Sometimes Chapman merely subtracted a useless sentence like "A chronicle of Eugene's experiences here would make a book in itself, interesting and valuable, though they would have little place in this story" (553). Often, it seems, he was carrying out the aim stated in his letter: reducing Dreiser's "too elaborate" presentation of peripheral characters, as in a description of Loomis Cathcart (1084). "What's Hecuba to me?" Chapman jotted in the margin. Often, too, his suggested deletions involve development of main characters, as in the bracketing of a passage that portrays Angela's refusal to let Witla forget his infidelities (809). Deletion of the latter point seems aimed at an Angela with whom the reader can more readily sympathize and, by the same token, deprives Witla of one of the irritants that underlay his growing resentment at her need to control him. A further consequence is that Witla's words to Angela upon learning of her pregnancy seem doubly cruel. In a few instances, Chapman's recommended cut was dictated by his sense of propriety: "Cut this: It would offend thousands," he commented in the margin next to a description of "the great wooden cross" with "the bleeding Christ" hanging in Witla's studio (811). But Dreiser retained this object d'art. Wherever feasible, Chapman "eliminated the word 'sex', with which your story is positively peppered." In sum, Chapman's deletions totaled slightly more than one third of the alleged 50,000 words.[47]

Chapman's wide vocabulary was of special service in revision.[48] He corrected, for example, the malapropos "retroactive" to "retrogressive." He substituted "basis of suspicion" for "basis of proof," "on probation" for "probationally," and hundreds more. As with the word "sex," he sought to reduce the number of occurrences of the words "conservative" and "conservatism," replacing them with "quiet," "prudent," "cautious," and other equivalents. He pressed for consistency: M. or Mr. Charles. He rectified Dreiser's attempt at quoting Hamlet and his misattribution to Keats of a line of Longfellow's. He futilely offered the emendation Anadyomene, a title for Venus, for Dreiser's fabricated Dianeme, which found its way into the published text. He called for the active voice of the verb rather than the passive. Of Dreiser's "Rossetti Gallery" and reference to Rossetti's portraits of Elizabeth Siddal, he cautioned: "There is not and never has been such a place, or even a private collection that could be so styled. And Rossetti's portraits and studies of Elizabeth Siddal numbered nearer the hundred than the score."

In addition, Chapman recast passages in the typescript.[49] A single example must serve to represent several instances. Dreiser's "For one thing Mrs. Hibberdell had been more and more impressed with the fact that Carlotta was not only interested or content to stay all summer but once having come that she was fairly determined to remain" became ". . . the fact that Carlotta was not merely content to stay but once having come she was fairly determined to remain." By these and other alterations, Chapman sometimes supplied a smoother texture to Dreiser's prose. In the letter of 8 July, Chapman acknowledged that as John Lane's reader this was his role. Chapman's massive cutting of passages of authorial comment and explanation as well as of some facets of character depiction also made a contribution to the final shape of the novel. Chapman appreciated the validity of Dreiser's need to document event and character with a full measure of supporting details. He succeeded in understanding Dreiser's concern to present clearly even the most subsidiary characters, but urged greater selectivity. Following publication of The "Genius", he paid Dreiser the compliment, "You could teach most of your contemporaries to observe, to co-ordinate, and to deduce" (1 March 1916, UPDC).

The next revisor was Floyd Dell, but only after he had undergone a change of heart regarding The "Genius". Having had access to the 1911 typescript of the novel subsequently lost in the mail, Dell asserted early in 1913 that Dreiser had "written a very bad book" (undated, UPDC). He at that time admitted, however, that his opinion "was formed upon only part of the book," which he had not had the "chance to finish," and that his estimate might change after a complete reading. But in 1913, this was Dell's judgment:

Still, Dell did not doubt that Dreiser had "a story to tell . . . which would move me." Dell, who in the fall of 1913 had moved to Greenwich Village, had by then "warmed up to the story."[50] When Chapman had returned the full typescript to Dreiser in July of 1915, Dell next set to work to "turn it into a fine thing."

Dell embroidered the facts, however, when he later wrote about his role in editing The "Genius", for which Dreiser had "hired" him:

Dell's principal contribution, it is true, consisted in cutting and reshaping passages with the aim of giving the story, written by Dreiser in a spontaneous flow, more exact meaning and more graceful form. Dell seconded most of Chapman's suggested deletions, sometimes adding a paragraph for removal, but here and there Dell retrieved one of Chapman's bracketed passages. Dell's editing for economy occurs on the majority of pages of the typescript. For example, he revised the following: to This instance can serve to represent many.

A rewritten passage contrasting Witla's and Angela's outlooks appears in Dell's handwriting (420 and 428-430). Following Chapman's suggestion at the beginning of Chapter 37, Dell excised four paragraphs. The first consists in an explanation that human society, having left behind the instinctual "morality" of beasts, has entered upon a path of sexual indulgence while opposing any open discussion of sex. In the second, faced with contrasting views of matrimony—from sexual athleticism to the Christian Science emphasis on spirit, Witla estimates that sexual license is within the limits of his strength, in keeping with the principle of self-preservation. In the third,

Witla admits, however, that there is a case for chastity and for exclusively reproductive use of sex. In the fourth, observing that chastity is a cardinal point urged by great religious teachers and lust and adultery condemned as a root of sickness that besets body as well as soul, the fatalistic Witla can nonetheless see no possibility of his observing the injunction against license. In addition to the four paragraphs bracketed by Chapman, Dell cut out the fifth paragraph, which treats sustained intense sexual activity of Witla and his wife, a passage which Chapman had extensively revised and which Dreiser ultimately used elsewhere in the novel.

Taking exception to Chapman, Dell deleted the sentence "It would be useless to describe the details and difficulties of a persistent decline" (461) and restored the preceding five paragraphs, removed by Chapman, who relied on the sentence Dell deleted as a substitute for tracing Witla's decline. On more than one occasion Dell advised Dreiser on resolving questions noted by Chapman in the margins. Beside Chapman's "'It's all day with the Wickham Union': idiom that hardly explains itself" (689), Dell jotted, "'All day' was succeeded in US by 'good night!'—meaning done for, dismissed!" Beside Angela's "'I won't let you marry her'" (1106), Chapman had written, "But how could she? . . . or is 'marry' her euphemism for 'live together'?" Dell modified the line to read "'I won't let you have her.'" Beside "She could get no line on his temperament now" (1173), Chapman had noted, "Meaningless to an Englishman, and I can't hit on a substitute." Dell revised the line to "She could get no clue to his temperament now." To a great extent Dell's revisory role paralleled that of Chapman. But, whereas the latter concentrated on deleting what he judged ineffective passages and on substituting a more serviceable diction, Dell did not hesitate to alter structural elements. "When at one spot," Dell recalled, "I complained that a short passage was needed for structural reasons, [Dreiser] said with gigantic tolerance, 'Well, if you think it's needed, go ahead and put it in.' I was being paid, so I . . . put it in" (Homecoming 269). Since the bulk of Dell's deletions consisted of paragraphs already marked for removal by Chapman, their combined cutting included, by my extrapolation, little more than 20,000 words. The nature of Dell's and of Chapman's revisions and Dreiser's cooperation with each calls into question the claim that though Dreiser "often allowed others to edit the style of his books, he fought bitterly when their content was questioned."[51] As Helen Dreiser observed, Dreiser welcomed a fresh eye on work he had completed and, from wide experience as an editor, realized the value of reworking one's prose.

Though Mencken had offered suggestions that he believed might improve The "Genius", Dreiser had declined to accept them and inscribed the presentation copy, "Without change but with best wishes just the same."[52] In contrast, Dreiser abided by almost every cut suggested either by Chapman

or by Dell along with most of their other editing, as comparison of the revised typescript with the galleys makes clear.

Final Revision

The typescript as revised first by Dreiser, then by Chapman, next by Dell, and again, finally, by Dreiser was not the setting copy for the galleys. Although Dreiser marked this typescript as that "from which [the] first edition was printed," it could not have been the setting copy: it bears no telltale signs—no typesetter's markings, no inky fingerprints, no spike-holes, no printer's notation of galley takes, no notations by the copy-editor and the compositor. How galleys were prepared thus poses a mystery. The galleys themselves display a few minor alterations beyond the revisions of the typescript. The galleys do not, however, present the final form of the novel. Comparison of the text of the galleys with that of the published edition shows that considerable revision was introduced after the galleys had been printed, introduced perhaps into printer's proof sheets which must have been destroyed by the John Lane Company after the final typesetting had been completed. Since there are no page proofs of The "Genius" in Pennsylvania's Dreiser Collection and since the extant galley sheets bear no trace of editing, little can be inferred about the circumstances of final revision. No evidence tells us who made the cuts or why they were made.

The change instantly seen in the published novel is replacement of one sequence of chapters numbered without a break from 1 through 104 with a postscript ("L'Envoi") in the holograph and through 105 with "L'Envoi" in the typescript and in the galleys. The published text is divided into three parts with a total of 91 chapters: Book I, "Youth," Chapters I through XXVIII; Book II, "Struggle," I through XLIV; and Book III, "Revolt," I through XXIX and "L'Envoi." The decision must have been made after scrutiny of the galleys to fix the format of page proofs in three books, perhaps, as Pizer offers, "in order to divide a very long novel into shorter parts" (Novels 136), perhaps on advice of an editor habituated to English novels in three volumes. In addition, one finds in the published text alteration in some chapter units, usually a combining of two chapters into one, an instance of which is noted in the following paragraph.

Shortening constitutes the pervasive difference between the published version and the galleys—the deletion of sentences, paragraphs, and even larger portions further accounting for the disparity in length between the holograph of, by Dreiser's count, 425,000 words and the published book of 350,000 words. Omitted from Book 2, Chapter 4, for example, are two paragraphs from the galleys which present Angela's reflection on obstacles to fidelity for husbands (Chapter 32 of the galleys) as well as one paragraph conveying her absolute trust in Witla's estimate of the National Academy, which she hopes will recognize him. Book 2, Chapter 11, omits a paragraph on Angela's feeling that Witla does not love her and also her process of educating him in matters of dress and social conduct (galleys Chapter 40). Book 2, Chapter 14, omits a passage expressing Angela's remembrances of Witla

courting her grandly and her determination not to share him with other women (galleys Chapter 42). These deletions seem representative of an effort to eliminate details in the characterization of Angela and of lesser characters, perhaps for increased emphasis on what is retained. But some passages portraying Witla's own experience were also judged expendable. From Book 2, Chapter 6, for example, eleven and a half paragraphs are omitted. They present Witla's excitement at receiving a letter from M. Charles and Witla's visit with Smite and McHugh, from whom he secured assurances that an exhibition at Kellner's would establish him in the art world and from whom he accepted advice to do less illustrating and more serious painting (galleys Chapter 34). Book 2, Chapter 9, omits a lengthy passage which traces Witla and Angela's period of adjustment in their Washington Square days (galleys Chapters 37 and 38). Like other passages cut in the final revision, this excised section sometimes underscores points already made clear in the story. Omitted from Book 2, Chapter 15, are three paragraphs which communicate Witla's trapped feeling in marriage to a wife who shares the conventional idea of a husband as property (galleys Chapter 43). Book 2, Chapter 41, omits fifteen such paragraphs. These treat the Witlas' social connections in Philadelphia, Eugene's enhanced reputation in holding a position with the Kalvin Company, his help to struggling artists despite efforts by his staff to ward off appeals, the development of his business personality together with his progressive views toward social reform, Angela's failure to broaden her outlook, their private quarrels at the same time that they give a public impression of being the ideal couple, and Witla's dreams of freedom from the burden of marriage.

Finally, such extensive cutting seems a stunting of the action and character of Dreiser's protagonist. Yet deletions from the galleys are much less extensive than those made in the revised typescript. The final result is not an art of conciseness and suggestion, however; it retains Dreiser's distinctive demonstrative and cumulative style held in closer limits.

Attempting to explain his art of fiction, Dreiser stated that "creative writing has more to do with emotion than any other single factor": "Generalized and intensified feeling for life is what is expressed."[53] He added:

His words point in elliptical fashion to his own initial experience prompting creation of a novel. Key stages in the process of construction include drafts and multiple reworking by the author, sometimes after fallow periods of concentration on matters other than the novel, prepublication critiques by respected acquaintances leading to modification of plot, and revisions by writers and editors other than the author as well as his own. The present paper has attempted to trace these stages in the evolution of The "Genius" toward its final form and meaning.

Notes