SOURCE: Introduction to The Best Short Stories of Theodore Dreiser, World Publishing Company, 1956, pp. 9-12.

In the following essay, Farrell praises Dreiser for his achievement in the short story form and for his "healthy pessimism."

Theodore Dreiser was a good storyteller and this collection contains some of his best stories. Due to the fact that his novels are so powerful and caused so much controversy, his stories have been neglected by critics. But among them are some of the finest and most moving short stories written by an American in this century.

In these tales there is variety of scene and range and depth of emotion. The emotions of mismated married people; the crazed feelings of a simple Midwestern old farmer who has lost his Phoebe, the partner of his life; the greed for gold of an illiterate farmer and his equally illiterate family; the despair of an...