1914. American author, outstanding representative of naturalism, whose novels depict real-life subjects in a harsh light. Dreiser's books were held to be amoral, and he battled throughout his career against censorship and popular taste. The Genius, a sprawling semiautobiographical chronicle of Dreiser's numerous love affairs, was originally censured by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.