Chains: Lesser Novels and Stories

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1927. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. Near Fine/Very Good.

The provocative foreword of Chains summarizes "the dominant theme of the book, namely, that human beings are 'chained' by external and internal forces and therefore limited in their ability to effect change and liberate themselves...

Published shortly after Dreiser's masterful novel An American Tragedy, this collection of 15 short stories contains two published for the first time, along with the title story "Chains," a work hailed as "experimental in its form and risqué... Its content challenged the conventional perceptions of love and marriage [and] the story's form completely defied narrative techniques."

Published on 30 April 1927 by Boni & Liveright and followed two weeks later by a special signed and numbered edition, Chains was Dreiser's second short story collection.

Blue cloth stamped in gilt; The bindings are tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Minimal shelf handling wear. 12mo; 7.5 inches tall; 425 pages. The Dust Jacket is with price and is in a new clear protective Mylar sleeve has light shelf handling with a modestly sun-faded spine. First Edition, First Printing, after Limited Edition of 400.. Background Information:
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency.

For a century, Theodore Dreiser has represented for many readers a rebellious modernism whose novels both critiqued the American dream and embodied a bleakly deterministic perception of life. His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), was reluctantly published and then ignored by its publisher, who thought the book immoral. Another publisher withdrew his fifth novel, The Genius (1915), rather than face prosecution on obscenity charges. Dreiser did not enjoy widespread popularity and critical acclaim until his masterpiece, An American Tragedy, appeared in 1925.

This collection furthered the praise of critics such as John Cowper Powys, who declared Dreiser to be "a greater realist than Zola."

The fifteen short stories in the collection are as follows:
Sanctuary / The Hand / Chains / St. Columba and the River / Convention / Khat / Typhoon / The Old Neighborhood / Phantom Gold / Marriage-For One / Fulfilment / Victory / The Shadow / The Mercy" of God / A Prince Who Was a Thief

Ref: Johnson, 152; Newlin, 55; wiki