Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, 1912. First editions of the first novel of the author's acclaimed Trilogy of Desire. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a very good dust jacket with some unnecessary tape reinforcement to the verso with some bleedthrough. Rare in the original dust jacket. Frank Cowperwood, a fiercely ambitious businessman, emerges as the very embodiment of greed as he relentlessly seeks satisfaction in wealth, women, and power. As Cowperwood deals and double-deals, betrays and is in turn betrayed, his rise and fall come to represent the American success story stripped down to brutal realities-a struggle for spoils without conscience or pity. Dreiser's 1912 classic remains an unsparing social critique as well as a devastating character study of one of the most unforgettable American businessmen in twentieth-century literature. [Attributes: First Edition; Signed Copy; Hard Cover; In Dust Jacket]