Winesburg, Ohio (The Modern Library of the World's Best Books, ML 104)

xiv, [3], 303, [7] pp. 8vo. Introduction by Ernest Boyd. "Published in 1919, Winesburg, Ohio is Sherwood Anderson's masterpiece, a work in which he achieved the goal to which he believed all true writers should aspire: to see and feel 'all of life within.' In a perfectly imagined world, an archetypal small American town, he reveals the hidden passions that turn ordinary lives into unforgettable ones. Unified by the recurring presence of young George Willard, and played out against the backdrop of Winesburg, Anderson's loosely connected chapters, or stories, coalesce into a powerful novel." "To Sherwood Anderson, more than to any other American writer, belongs the distinction of having converted mere sectional writing into a universal experience. As the interpreter of mid- Western life, he wrought a change in mood and method that was revolutionary. His masterpiece, Winesburg, Ohio, became the forerunner of a new and vital school of contemporary writing. Its glowing humanity, its inescapable conviction of truth and its brooding, tender insight make it a book by which Anderson has earned a leading rank among the important novelists of America and certainly among the best of our storytellers."