Winesburg, Ohio

Front Cover
Penguin, Sep 1, 1992 - Fiction - 256 pages
George Willard is a young reporter on the Winesburg Eagle to whom, one by one, the inhabitants of Winesburg, Ohio, confide their hopes, their dreams, and their fears. This town of friendly but solitary people comes to life as Anderson's special talent exposes the emotional undercurrents that bind its people together. In this timeless cycle of short stories, he lays bare the life of a small town in the American Midwest.

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Selected pages

Contents

THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE
21
HANDS concerning Wing Biddlebaum
27
PAPER PILLS concerning Doctor Reefy
35
MOTHER concerning Elizabeth Willard
39
THE PHILOSOPHER concerning Doctor Parcival
49
NOBODY KNOWS concerning Louise Trunnion
58
GODLINESS A Tale in Four Parts
63
II also concerning Jesse Bentley
74
THE THINKER concerning Seth Richmond
128
TANDY concerning Tandy Hard
143
THE STRENGTH OF GOD concerning the Reverend Curtis Hartman
147
THE TEACHER concerning Kate Swift
157
LONELINESS concerning Enoch Robinson
167
AN AWAKENING concerning Belle Carpenter
179
QUEER concerning Elmer Cowley
190
THE UNTOLD LIE concerning Ray Pearson
202

III Surrender concerning Louise Bentley
87
IV Terror concerning David Hardy
97
A MAN OF IDEAS concerning Joe Welling
103
ADVENTURE concerning Alice Hindman
112
RESPECTABILITY concerning Wash Williams
121
DRINK concerning Tom Foster
210
DEATH concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard
220
SOPHISTICATION concerning Helen White
233
DEPARTURE concerning George Willard
244
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About the author (1992)

Born in 1876, Sherwood Anderson grew up in a small town in Ohio—an experience that was the basis of his greatest achievements as a writer. He served in the Spanish-American War, worked as an advertising man, 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 (1919), with its disillusioned view of small-town lives, that is generally considered his masterpiece. Later novels—Poor White, Many Marriages, and Dark Laughter—continued to depict the spiritual poverty of the machine age. Anderson died in 1941.

Malcolm Cowley (1898–1989) a leadiing literary figure of his time, wrote numerous books of literary criticism, essays, and poetry.

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