Sherwood Anderson

Joshua Miller

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Essential Facts

Sherwood Anderson founded the company Anderson Manufacturing, whose claim to fame was a top-selling product called “Roof-Fix.”Anderson was instrumental in getting both William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway published.Anderson’s gravestone reads: “Life not death is the greatest adventure.”

Early Life

Anderson was born in Camden, Ohio; but he was raised in Clyde, Ohio.He was the third of seven children.Family difficulties led his father to begin drinking heavily; he died when Anderson was young.

Early Life (cont.)

Along with the result of these misfortunes, young Sherwood found various odd jobs to help his family, which earned him the nickname "Jobby." He left school at age 14.

Early Life (cont.)

He worked as a manual laborer until near the turn of the century, and then he enlisted in the United States Army.He was called up but did not see action in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.After the war, in 1900, he enrolled at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

Early Life (cont.)

In 1904, he married Cornelia Lane, the daughter of a wealthy Ohio family. He fathered three children while living in Cleveland, Ohio, and later Elyria, Ohio, where he managed a mail-order business and paint manufacturing firms.

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Early Life (cont.)

In November 1912 he suffered a mental breakdown and disappeared for four days. Soon after, he left his position as president of the Anderson Manufacturing Co. in Elyria, Ohio, and left his wife and three small children to pursue the writer's life of creativity. Anderson described the entire episode as "escaping from his materialistic existence," which garnered praise from many young writers, who used his "courage" as an example.

Novelist

Anderson's first novel, Windy McPherson's Son, was published in 1916. Three years later, his second major work, Marching Men, was published. However, he is most famous for his collection of interrelated short stories, which he began writing in 1919, known as Winesburg, Ohio.

Novelist (cont.)

He claimed that Hands, the opening story, was the first "real" story he ever wrote. His themes are comparable to those of T. S. Eliot and other modernist writers.

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Novelist (cont.)

Although his short stories were very successful, Anderson felt the need to write novels. In 1920, he published Poor White, a rather successful novel.

Novelist (cont.)

He wrote various novels before divorcing Mitchell in 1922 and marrying Elizabeth Prall, two years later.

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Novelist (cont.)

In 1923, Anderson published Many Marriages, the themes of which he would carry over into much of his later writing. F. Scott Fitzgerald gave many great reviews for the novels he wrote, for example, considered Many Marriages and Circle Of Death to be Anderson's finest novels.

Novelist (cont.)

Beginning in 1924, Anderson lived in the historic Pontalba Apartments (540-B St. Peter Street) adjoining Jackson Square in New Orleans. There, he and his wife entertained William Faulkner, Carl Sandburg, Edmund Wilson and other literary luminaries. Of Faulkner, in fact, he wrote his ambiguous and moving short story "A Meeting South," and, in 1925, wrote Dark Laughter, a novel rooted in his New Orleans experience.Although the book is now out of print (and was satirized by Ernest Hemingway in his novel The Torrents of Spring), it was Anderson's only best-seller.

Getting Remarried

Anderson's third marriage also failed, and he married Eleanor Copenhaver in the late 1920s. They traveled and often studied together. In the 1930s, Anderson published Death in the Woods, Puzzled America (a book of essays), and Kit Brandon, which was published in 1936.

Getting Remarried (cont.)

Anderson dedicated his 1932 novel, Beyond Desire, to Copenhaver. Although he was much less influential in this final writing period, many of his more significant lines of prose were present in these works, which were generally considered sub-par compared to his other works.

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Getting Remarried (cont.)

"Beyond Desire", set during the 1929 Loray Mill Strike in Gastonia, NC, resulted in yet another satirical mention by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway included a minor character in his 1937 novel To Have and Have Not who is an author. This character is working on a novel of Gastonia.

Death

Anderson died in Panama at the age of 64. The cause of death was peritonitis after he accidentally swallowed a piece of a toothpick embedded in a martini olive at a party. He was buried at Round Hill Cemetery in Marion, Virginia. His epitaph reads, "Life, Not Death, is the Great Adventure."

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Death (cont.)

Anderson's final home, known as Ripshin, still stands in Troutdale, Virginia, and may be toured by appointment.

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Works

Windy McPherson's Son, (1916, novel)

Marching Men, (1917, novel)

Winesburg, Ohio, (1919, novel)

Poor White, (1920, novel)

Triumph of the Egg, (1921, short stories)

Many Marriages, (1923, novel)

Horses and Men, (1923, short stories)

A Story-Teller's Story, (1924, semi-autobiographical novel)Sherwood Anderson's Memoirs, (1924, memoirs)An Exhibition of Paintings By Alfred H. Maurer, (1924, non-fiction)Dark Laughter, (1925, novel)A Meeting South, (1925, novel)Modern Writer, (1925, non-fiction)

Major Work

Winesburg, OhioAnderson grew up in Clyde, Ohio, and this town served as the model for his fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio.This novel contains twenty- two short stories. (Chapters located on next slide)

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Winesburg, Ohio Video Preview

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Major Work (cont.)

The Book of the GrotesqueHands, concerning Wing BiddlebaumPaper Pills, concerning Doctor ReefyMother, concerning Elizabeth WillardThe Philosopher, concerning Doctor ParcivalNobody Knows, concerning Louise TrunnionGodliness, a Tale in Four PartsI, concerning Jesse BentleyII, also concerning Jesse BentleyIII Surrender, concerning Louise BentleyIV Terror, concerning David HardyA Man of Ideas, concerning Joe WellingAdventure, concerning Alice HindmanRespectability, concerning Wash Williams

The Thinker, concerning Seth RichmondTandy, concerning Tandy HardThe Strength of God, concerning the Reverend Curtis HartmanThe Teacher, concerning Kate SwiftLoneliness, concerning Enoch RobinsonAn Awakening, concerning Belle Carpenter"Queer," concerning Elmer CowleyThe Untold Lie, concerning Ray PearsonDrink, concerning Tom FosterDeath, concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth WillardSophistication, concerning Helen WhiteDeparture, concerning George Willard.

Famous Quotes from Winesburg, Ohio

In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts.It was the truths that the people grotesques. The moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood.

Famous Quotes from Winesburg,

Ohio (cont.)He was one of those rare, little-understood men who rule by a power so gentle that it passes as lovable weakness.Although he still hungered for the or the presence of the boy, who was the medium through which he expressed his love of man, the hunger became again a part of his loneliness and waiting.The truth clouded the world. It became terrible and then faded away, and the little thoughts began again.I want someone to love and I want someone to love me…

Bibliography

www.wikipedia.comhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Andersonwww.youtube.com