Photo from Library of America

Sherwood Anderson (1876 – 1941) was an American writer whose meticulous character development earned him recognition as a “writer’s writer.” Like a number of other famous writers such as Anton Chekhov, Charles Dickens, and Louisa May Alcott, Sherwood’s childhood and adolescence knew family hardship. When his father’s business failed, the family moved constantly and his mother became an alcoholic. As a result of these hardships, Anderson left school at the age of fourteen in order to help with the family finances.

Anderson is best known for his short stories, particularly his collection published as Winesburg, Ohio (1919). His characters (whom in his first story, the writer calls “grotesques”) transform experiences into truths, which can be built-up, and once embraced, turn to falsehoods. He almost lovingly writes about his own collection of “grotesques,” using a writing style often compared to his literary predecessor, William Dean Howells, as naturalism. Anderson invites the reader into his process as a writer, in which he unfolds his characters’ views of the world, intertwined as they are, in a small midwestern town. His appealing style influenced many other writers, including Willa Cather, Henry James, and Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner, among others.

(Adapted from “Sherwood Anderson.” For full article, click here)