This series of novels depicts Frank Cowperwood, a businessman based on the real-life streetcar tycoon Charles Yerkes.

After many years of preparatory work, Dreiser commenced writing the third volume of his Cowperwood trilogy in April 1932.

Having circulated the draft among friends and advisors, he decided to delete the epilogue and to rewrite the final chapter.

[1][2] A number of Dreiser`s characters in The Stoic are based on persons associated with Yerkes during his London years.

Back in the United States, she realises there is poverty there too, and decides to set up a hospital for the poor, as Cowperwood intended.