The Financier is a novel by Theodore Dreiser, based on real-life streetcar tycoon Charles Yerkes. Dreiser started writing his manuscript in 1911, and the following year published the first part of his lengthy work as The Financier.[1] The second part appeared in 1914 as The Titan; the third volume of his Trilogy of Desire was also Dreiser's final novel, The Stoic (1947).

The Financier
First edition
AuthorTheodore Dreiser
LanguageEnglish
SeriesA Trilogy of Desire
PublisherHarper & Brothers
Publication date
1912
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Followed byThe Titan 

Plot summary

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In Philadelphia, Frank Cowperwood, whose father is a banker, makes his first money passing by an auction sale; he successfully bids for seven cases of Castile soap, which he sells to a grocer the same day with a profit of over 70 percent. Later, he gets a job in Henry Waterman & Company, and leaves it for Tighe & Company. He also marries an affluent widow, in spite of his young age. Over the years, he starts investing and misusing municipal funds with the aid of the City Treasurer, George Stener. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire causes a stock market crash, prompting him to be bankrupt and exposed. He attempts to browbeat his way out of being sentenced to jail by intimidating Stener. However, politicians from the Republican Party, who themselves often stoop to bribery and misuse of city funds, use him as a scapegoat for their own corrupt practices. Meanwhile, he has an affair with Aileen Butler, the daughter of one of his business partners. She vows to wait for him after his jail sentence. Her father, Edward Butler dies, and she grows apart from her family.

Allusions to actual history

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Allusions to other works

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References

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  1. ^ Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, Twelve Men. Richard Lehan, ed. New York: Library of America, 1987, pp. 1141–2. ISBN 0-940450-41-0
  2. ^ Daniel A. Zimmerman, Panic!: Markets, Crises, and Crowds in American Fiction (Cultural Studies of the United States), The University of North Carolina Press, 2006, p. 191 [1]
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