Hey everyone,

Thanks for a great meeting last night!

I was doing a bit of research on Sister Carrie this morning to put together a blurb for the next meeting and discovered that there are two versions in print.  One is based on the original manuscript that Dreiser submitted for publication, which was deemed too racy for the times, but has since been published at the urging of scholars.  And there is the heavily edited (by the publisher) version that was published in 1900.  The 1900 publication must be what I was looking at last night on Amazon that is 360+ pages.  The unedited version is between 550 and 600 pages, depending on the edition. 

I think that for a meeting to be successful, everyone will need to read the same version.  The question is, which one should we read?  Does this new wrinkle affect anyone's enthusiasm for reading this book?

My personal preference would be to read the unedited book.  Since there are 5 weeks before the next meeting, I think it is doable.  However, I know people are a bit fatigued by the long books we've been reading, so I'm open to everyone's thoughts. 

I'm only emailing those of you who attended last night (and a couple of you who didn't attend, because I can't figure out how to remove individual names from the list), because I don't really want to open it to a larger discussion.  I'm afraid it would drag out the matter longer than I would like.  Because of the potential length of the book, I want to get the next meeting posted asap. 

As an aside to those of you who didn't make it to the meeting:  Don't worry about it!  I understand that you were bumped up from the waiting list with very little notice and the book was very long.  In the future, it would be great if you could change your RSVP status, but certainly no one is holding it against you that you didn't attempt to power through nearly 700 pages in 24 hours. 

Thanks for your feedback,

Angie