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  • Published: 1 November 2005
  • ISBN: 9780451529954
  • Imprint: Signet
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $14.99

Winesburg, Ohio




The shocking book that brought Sherwood Anderson both critical and popular acclaim.

Winesburg, Ohio, gave birth to the American story cycle, for which William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and later writers were forever indebted. Defying the prudish sensibilities of his time, Anderson never omitted anything adult, harsh, or shocking; instead he embraced frankness, truth, and the hidden depths everyone possesses. Here we meet young George Willard, a newspaper reporter with dreams; Kate Swift, the schoolteacher who attempts to seduce him; Wing Biddlebaum, a berry picker whose hands are the source of both his renown and shame; Alice Hindman, who has one last adventure; and all the other complex human beings whose portraits brought American literature into the modern age. Their stories make up a classic and place its author alongside the best of American writers.   

With an Introduction by Irving Howe
and an Afterword by Dean Koontz
 

  • Published: 1 November 2005
  • ISBN: 9780451529954
  • Imprint: Signet
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $14.99

About the author

Sherwood Anderson

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 novel Windy 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 is Winesburg Ohio, published in 1919, that is generally considered his masterpiece. His later novels, including Poor White, Many Marriages and Dark Laughter, continued to depict the spiritual poverty of the machine age. He died in 1941.

Praise for Winesburg, Ohio

"He was the father of my whole generation of writers." William Faulkner

"A work of love, an attempt to break down the walls that divide one person from another, and also, in its own fashion, a celebration of small-town life in the lost days of goodwill and innocence." Malcolm Cowley