Dreiser, Theodore: - "Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27, 1871 - December 28, 1945) 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. Dreiser's best known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925). After graduating from high school in Warsaw, Indiana, Dreiser attended Indiana University in 1889-1890 without taking a degree. Dreiser was going to return from his first European vacation on the Titanic but was talked out of it by an English publisher who recommended he board a cheaper ship.Within several years, Dreiser was writing as a journalist for the Chicago Globe newspaper and then the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. After proposing in 1893, he married Sara Osborne White on December 28, 1898. They ultimately separated in 1909, partly as a result of Dreiser's infatuation with Thelma Cudlipp, the teenage daughter of a colleague, but were never formally divorced. In 1913, he began a romantic relationship with the actress and painter Kyra Markham. In 1919, Dreiser met his cousin Helen Patges Richardson (1894-1955) with whom he began an affair. Through the following decades, she remained the constant woman in his life, even through many more temporary love affairs (such as one with his secretary Clara Jaeger in the 1930s). Helen tolerated Dreiser's affairs, and they eventually married on June 13, 1944. They remained together until his death on December 28, 1945, at the age of 74."