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Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson, a notable American writer, was born on September 13, 1876, in Camden, Ohio. He was the third of seven children of Emma Jane (nee Smith) and Irwin McLain Anderson, a former Union soldier and harness maker. Anderson's early years were spent in a small farm town called Clyde, which would later become the inspiration for many of his works.

Anderson's life was often reflected in his autobiographical works, including the renowned 'Winesburg, Ohio' (1919). He left high school incomplete to support his family, eventually managing a paint factory in Elyria. He had three children with his first wife, one of his four, and settled into a life of materialism and convention. However, in 1912, Anderson chose to abandon his family and job, moving to Chicago to dedicate more time to his artistic pursuits. This decision marked a significant shift in his life, as he embraced art as a heroic model for the youth and distanced himself from conventional materialism.

Anderson's literary voice has been recognized as having a profound influence on many famous writers, such as Ernest Miller Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Clayton Wolfe, John Ernst Steinbeck, and Erskine Preston Caldwell. His most important book, 'Winesburg, Ohio,' compiles 22 stories that explore the lives of the inhabitants of a fictional version of his childhood town. These stories were a significant departure from traditional short stories, as Anderson prioritized simple, precise, and unsentimental storytelling to reveal the frustration, loneliness, and longing in the lives of his characters. The narrow-mindedness of Midwestern small-town life and the limitations of the characters are recurring themes in his work.

Despite not achieving significant success with his novels, Anderson's impact on the literary world is undeniable. His classic short stories have influenced Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald and the generation that followed. While the literary quality of his works is essential, it does not fully explain the historical significance that Anderson holds in the world of literature.
Standalone Novels
# Title Year
1 Windy McPherson's Son 1916
2 Marching Men 1917
3 Poor White 1920
4 Many Marriages 1922
5 The Teller's Tales 1924
6 A Meeting South 1925
7 Dark Laughter 1926
8 Alice and The Lost Novel 1929
9 Hello Towns! 1929
10 Nearer the Grass Roots 1929
11 Perhaps Women 1931
12 Beyond Desire 1932
13 No Swank 1934
14 Home Town 1940
Collections
# Title Year
1 Mid American Chants 1918
2 Winesburg, Ohio 1919
3 The Egg and Other Stories 1921
4 The Triumph of the Egg 1921
5 Horses and Men 1923
6 Death in the Woods and Other Stories 1924
7 Plays: Winesburg and Others 1937
8 Selected Stories 1945
9 The Portable Sherwood Anderson 1949
10 Early Writings 1989
11 Certain Things Last 1992
Non-Fiction Books
# Title Year
1 A Story Teller's Story 1924
2 Sherwood Anderson's Notebook 1926
3 Tar 1926
4 Dreiser 1936
5 San Francisco at Christmas 1941
6 Letters of Sherwood Anderson 1953
7 Return to Winesburg 1967
8 Sherwood Anderson's Memoirs 1969
9 Memoirs 1969
10 Puzzled America 1970
11 The Buck Fever Papers 1971
12 Sherwood Anderson/Gertrude Stein 1972
13 Paul Rosenfeld, Voyager in the Arts 1978
14 Sherwood Anderson: The Writer at His Craft 1979
15 Selected Letters 1983
16 Kit Brandon 1985
17 Letters to Bab 1985
18 The Sherwood Anderson Diaries, 1936-1941 1987
19 Sherwood Anderson's Love Letters to Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson 1989
20 Sherwood Anderson's Secret Love Letters 1991
21 Southern Odyssey 1997
Sherwood Anderson Anthologies
# Title Year
1 Short Story Masterpieces: 35 Classic American and British Stories from the First Half of the 20th Century 1954
2 Love Will Come 1959
3 50 Great American Short Stories 1963
4 The Best American Short Stories of the Century 2000
5 Escape to Mexico: An Anthology of Great Writers 2002