Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories

At the end of December 2012, The Library of America published Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories. Michael Dirda, in a review he wrote for The Times Literary Supplement (here ^[1]), called Anderson “the John the Baptist who prepared the way for (and influenced) writers as different as Ernest Hemingway, Eudora Welty and Ray Bradbury.” The Library of America said, “Without Anderson’s example, the work of Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck, McCullers, Mailer, and Kerouac is almost unthinkable.” There’d be quite a hole in our literary history if he hadn’t come along, yet I feel that Anderson’s work is neglected these days.

Is Anderson widely read anymore? Every once in a while someone brings up Winesburg, Ohio, and it seems that when they do they’re talking about some yesteryear; in other words, it seems many people have read it but no one is reading it now. Furthermore, I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of anyone reading his other work.

Naturally, my position does not give me any real privilege into the world of Anderson’s readers. I myself have read only Winesburg, Ohio. It remains one of the most formative and most enjoyable reading experiences of my life. That’s an understatement, actually: along with changing my relationship to literature, it affected my relationship with those around me, shaped the way I see our community, our shared histories, our isolation. Along with a few other select pieces of American literature, it is one of the reasons I enjoy the richness of small town life when I once dreamed of living in the bustling city.

It’s been a few years since I revisited Winesburg, Ohio, and this time I’m not going to stop when I’ve finished it. I’m encouraged by Michael Dirda, who, in that piece I linked to above, said, “[A]t least a half dozen of the stories he wrote in the 1920s and 30s are equal, or superior, to any of those in Winesburg, Ohio.” I’m anxious to see if I agree. I’m actually wondering if one of the reasons we don’t read much of Anderson’s work anymore is because the writers he influenced are better, so we read them.

As I read Sherwood Anderson: Collected Stories, I’m going to be blogging about each story. It will take a while, I’m sure. I’d like to invite you to explore the works of Sherwood Anderson with me. As I said, I’m planning to do this slowly, so you have time to get your hands on a copy. Posts will start next week, while I’m away on holiday.

Here, for reference and as an outline of my simple from-page-one-to-the-end approach, is the Table of Contents. I will be updating this table with links to the individual posts as they materialize.

• Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
  • The Book of the Grotesque ^[2]
  • Hands — concerning Wing Biddlebaum ^[3]
  • Paper Pills — concerning Doctor Reefy ^[4]
  • Mother — concerning Elizabeth Willard ^[5]
  • The Philosopher — concerning Doctor Parcival ^[6]
  • Nobody Knows — concerning Louise Trunnion ^[7]
  • Godliness (Parts I and II) — concerning Jesse Bentley ^[8]
  • Surrender (Part III) — concerning Louise Bentley ^[9]
  • Terror (Part IV) — concerning David Hardy ^[10]
  • A Man of Ideas — concerning Joe Welling ^[11]
  • Adventure — concerning Alice Hindman ^[12]
  • Respectability — concerning Wash Williams ^[13]
  • The Thinker — concerning Seth Richmond
  • Tandy — concerning Tandy Hard
  • The Strength of God — concerning The Reverend Curtis Hartman
  • The Teacher — concerning Kate Swift
  • Loneliness — concerning Enoch Robinson
  • An Awakening — concerning Belle Carpenter
  • “Queer” — concerning Elmer Cowley
  • The Untold Lie — concerning Ray Pearson
  • Drink — concerning Tom Foster
  • Death — concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard
  • Sophistication — concerning Helen White
  • Departure — concerning George Willard
• The Triumph of the Egg (1921)
  • The Dumb Man
  • I Want to Know Why
  • Seeds
  • The Other Woman
  • The Egg
  • Unlighted Lamps
  • Senility
  • The Man in the Brown Coat
  • Brothers
  • The Door of the Trap
  • The New Englander
  • War
  • Motherhood
  • Out of Nowhere into Nothing
  • The Man with the Trumpet
• Horse and Men (1923)
  • Dreiser
  • I’m a Fool
  • The Triumph of a Modern
  • “Unused”
  • A Chicago Hamlet
  • The Man Who Became a Woman
  • Milk Bottles
  • The Sad Horn Blowers
  • The Man’s Story
  • An Ohio Pagan
• Death in the Woods and Other Stories (1933)
  • Death in the Woods
  • The Return
  • There She Is — She Is Taking Her Bath
  • The Lost Novel
  • The Fight
  • Like a Queen
  • That Sophistication
  • In a Strange Town
  • These Mountaineers
  • A Sentimental Journey
  • A Jury Case
  • Another Wife
  • A Meeting South
  • The Flood
  • Why They Got Married
  • Brother Death
• Uncollected Stories
  • Sister
  • The White Streak
  • Certain Things Last
  • Off Balance
  • I Get So I Can’t Go On
  • Mr. Joe’s Doctor
  • The Corn Planting
  • Feud
  • Harry Breaks Through
  • Mrs. Wife
  • Two Lovers
  • White Spot
  • Nobody Laughed
  • A Landed Proprietor
  • The Persistent Liar

Liked it? Take a second to support The Mookse and the Gripes on Patreon!

^[14]