WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SARA WHEELER

'He was the father of my generation of American writers and the tradition of American writing' William Faulkner

This timeless cycle of short stories lays bare the life of a small town in the American Midwest. The central character is George Willard, a young reporter on the WINESBURG EAGLE to whom, one by one, the town's inhabitants confide their hopes, their dreams, and their fears. The town of friendly but solitary people comes to life as Anderson's special talent exposes the emotional undercurrants that bind its people together.

Sherwood Anderson was born in 1876 and grew up in a small town in Ohio. He served in the Spanish-American War, worked in advertising and managed an Ohio paint factory before abandoning both job and family to embark on a literary career in Chicago. His first novelWindy McPherson's Son, was published in 1916; his second,Marching Men, a characteristic study of the individual in conflict with industrial society, appeared in 1917. But it isWinesburg Ohio, published in 1919, that is generally considered his masterpiece. His later novels, includingPoor White, Many MarriagesandDark Laughter, continued to depict the spiritual poverty of the machine age. He died in 1941.

Hemingway, Faulkner, Updike and Carver all rated Anderson. After reading the thriftily evoked lives of the residents of Winesberg Ohio, you will too.

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