Books: Color of a City*

Color of a City—

Dreiser Tells of Old Sam’l Clampitt’s Junk-Yard, Etc. The Story. These 38 prose sketches of New York—the New York of Chuck Connors and the unsophisticated Bowery and the old-time bread-line—range odd corners of the city and exhume most curious figures from the dust of the first decade of the century. The Log of A Harbor Pilot describes the tossing existence of that strange race of minor vikings, veteran pinochlers all. The Michael J. Powers Association portrays the glad-hand life of a typical East Side boss—derby-hatted ruler over 40,000 would-be Americans. The Car-Yard and the gigantic adventure of freight—smoke and bells—the places the dusty freight-cars have been, the things they have seen! The life of a trackwalker on the subway, dodging 200 cannonball flyers a day for tiny wages—the sleights of a push cart man —the sandwichmen, those biting commentators upon our modern scheme of existence—the revivalists—the lovers of Little Italy—the bums—the men in the dark—the men in the storm—the men in the snow. Do you know of the white-draped cradle within the door of one of New York’s great institutions where, every year for 60 years, poor mothers and rich, humble— and proud alike, have laid their unwanted children in the arms of charity? Have you heard of the tarnished fame of Hell’s Kitchen as it used to be? Sailors Snug Harbor, where a thousand old seamen find refuge and a little security after many storms; the Bowery Mission; the cheap, grudgingly-charitable men’s hotel that Mr. Dreiser calls the “wayplace of the fallen;” old Samuel Clampitt’s junkyard on 135th Street by the Harlem River, with its stuttering hunched proprietor who kept savage Great Danes in his yard—Mr. Dreiser can take you to them all and many other singular nooks beside. A guide who has had extraordinary opportunities for observing every changing aspect of a great and diverse city for more than IS years, who has a curious, stumbling power for description, he can set before you with every detail of reality, the queer places, persons and events that he has seen.

The Significance. Here is a book about a New York which has already become almost as much of a tradition as the New York of The Age of Innocence. The book is written by one of the pioneers of “realism” in America. Dreiser seeks to do for his city what Dickens did for his in The Uncommercial Traveler and in other sketches. The manners are different—the American attempt not quite so successful, on the whole, as the English one. But nevertheless, The Color of a Great City is crammed with a wealth of odd detail, vivid observation and strange information. Excellent reporting, readable and alive.

The Author. Journalist, editor, novelist, short story writer, playwright, philanthropist, essayist — Theodore Dreiser has been each in turn. He entered newspaper work at the age of 21. After a few months on the Chicago Daily Globe, he became dramatic editor and traveling correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and subsequently traveling correspondent of the St. Louis Republic. He was for some years employed in special editorial work for Harper’s, Century and other large publishing houses. From 1907 to 1910 he was editor-in-chief of the Butterick publications (Delineator, Designer, New Idea, English Delineator). In 1907 he was also engaged in organizing a National Child Rescue Campaign. Among his novels are: Sister Carrie, The Genius, The Titan, Jennie Gerhardt. In 1919 he published Hey, Rub-a-Dub-Dub, a volume of essays.

Of German ancestry, he was born at Terre Haute, Ind., in 1871, educated in the public schools and at the University of Indiana. Married, he lives in Los Angeles.

*THE COLOR OF A GREAT CITY—Theodore Dreiser—Boni ($3.50).