Winesburg, Ohio

Anderson, Sherwood

Softcover

ISBN 10: 055321439X ISBN 13: 9780553214390

Publisher: Bantam USA, 1995

"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.

Review:

"When he calls himself a 'poor scribbler' don't believe him. He is not a poor scribbler . . . he is a very great writer."--Ernest Hemingway

"Winesburg, Ohio, when it first appeared, kept me up a whole night in a steady crescendo of emotion."--Hart Crane

"As a rule, first books show more bravado than anything else, unless it be tediousness. But there is neither of these qualities in Winesburg, Ohio. . . . These people live and breathe: they are beautiful."--E. M. Forster

"Winesburg, Ohio is an extraordinarily good book. But it is not fiction. It is poetry."--Rebecca West

Book Description:

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