The Desire Trilogy (Annotated)

Theodore Dreiser's The Desire Trilogy—comprising The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic—offers a sweeping naturalist study of American capitalism through the rise of Frank Cowperwood, a financier modeled partly on Charles T. Yerkes. Written in Dreiser's characteristically dense, documentary style, the trilogy examines speculation, urban expansion, sexual freedom, and moral ambiguity in the Gilded...