Sherwood Anderson

There is within every human being a deep well of thinking over which a heavy iron lid is kept clamped. Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is Sherwood Anderson's masterpiece, a cycle of short stories concerning life in a small Ohio town at the end of the nineteenth century. At the centre is George Willard, a young reporter who becomes the confidant of the town's `grotesques' - solitary figures unable to communicate with others. George is their conduit for expression and solace from loneliness, but he has his own longings which eventually draw him away from home to seek a career in the city. He carries with him the dreams and unuttered words of remarkable characters such as Wing Biddlebaum, the disgraced former teacher, and the story-telling Doctor Parcival. The book has influenced many American writers, including ernest hemingway, William Faulkner, John Updike, Raymond Carver, and Joyce Carol Oates. It reshaped the development of the modern short story, turning the genre away from an emphasis upon plot towards a capability for illuminating the emotional lives of ordinary people. This new edition corrects errors in earlier editions and takes into account major criticism and textual scholarship of the last several decades. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Still fresh and strikingly contemporary, the stark realism of these stories carefully explores the dreams and emotions of Sherwood Anderson's unforgettable characters. In Death in the Woods, we travel deep into the heart of America as Anderson saw it, to find an introspective man, in a desolate landscape, questioning the very meaning of his world.

Inspired by Sherwood Anderson's Midwestern boyhood, the loosely connected stories in "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 aberrant; 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, shocking 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

Inspired by Anderson's Midwestern boyhood and his observations in early 20th-century Chicago, the loosely connected stories in "Winesburg, Ohio" gave birth to the American story cycle, for which Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and later writers were forever indebted. Reissue.

The tale of an American writer's journey through his own imaginative world and through the world of facts, with many of his experiences and impressions among other writers—told in many notes—in four books—and an Epilogue. This is a memoir of Midwestern life and culture from the author of Winesburg, Ohio. "The voice of the soliloquist . . . amplifies the drama of A Story Teller's Story, as does the persistent theme of escape, from an America of fact and factories, marketing and manufacturing, to the borderless Ohios of imagination and creation." —From the introduction by Thomas Lynch

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary. ORG - - There is a story. - I cannot tell it. - I have no words. The story is almost forgotten but sometimes I remember. The story concerns three men in a house in a street. If I could say the words I would sing the story. I would whisper it into the ears of women, of mothers. I would run through the streets saying it over and over. My tongue would be torn loose - it would rattle against my teeth. The three men are in a room in the house. One is young and dandified. He continually laughs. There is a second man who has a long white beard. He is consumed with doubt but occasionally his doubt leaves him and he sleeps.