An American Tragedy is one of the most powerful novels ever written. Based upon an actual incident, this is the story of Clyde Griffiths, an ordinary boy driven by passion and ambition into a tragic conflict with the conventions and inequities of society. Rising steadily toward his goal of wealth and social prestige, Clyde unexpectedly learns that Roberta, a factory girl with whom he had had an illicit love affair, is pregnant. Desperately entrapped, he kills her. He is arrested and brought to trial in a climax of memorable tension and drama.  This book is, as H. L. Mencken has said, more than "the minutely detailed picture of one unhappy young man's life; it is a commentary upon human life in general." No reader finishes An American Tragedy without realizing that he has undergone a literary experience of profound significance and impact.