“Titan” is the second part of Dreiser’s monumental “Trilogy of Desire” (which also includes the novels “The Financier” and “Stoic”). The trilogy’s main hero is Frank Cowperwood, whose prototype was the businessman Charles Yerkes. The novel describes the events in the life of the main character after the Philadelphia period. After getting out of prison and making a series of successful speculations during a stock-market panic—speculations that made him a millionaire—Cowperwood decides to continue his activities in Chicago.