
A teenage girl without money or connections leaves her small town in search of a better life in Dreiser's revolutionary first novel. The chronicle of Carrie Meeber's rise from obscurity to fame — and the effects of her progress on the men who use her and are used in turn — aroused much controversy upon its debut in 1900.
The driving forces of our culture -- restless idealism, glamorous material seductions and spiritual innocence -- are revealed in Dreiser's transformation of the conventional "fallen woman" story into a genuinely original work of imaginative fiction.