Jennie Gerhardt by Theodore Dreiser

JENNIE GERHARDT is the eponymous life story of a woman who craved affection. Unselfish, sweet, trusting, she is the daughter of poor working people in a Western city. She attracts the attention of one who sits in the seats of the mighty and he plans education and marriage with this girl hungry for love and grateful for recognition. But there comes a tragedy which leaves Jennie to face the world alone, with a dominant instinct for sympathy and love, something of which she accepts at last.