In 1927, tired of the literary life of New York City, New Orleans, and Chicago, a famous but aging American writer named Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) -- author of Winesburg, Ohio(1919) and other short stories in which he virtually invented the modern American short-story -- moved to rural Southwest Virginia to write for and edit two small-town weekly newspaper that he owned, the Marion Democrat. and the Smyth County News. Living again among the small-town figures with whom he was usually most content, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolf, and indeed an entire generation of the greatest American writers -- worked for several years at making his newspaper nationally famous while struggling to come to terms with a life-threatening psychological depression and a failing third marriage. Both of Anderson's midlife problems were complicated when he met Eleanor Copenhaver, lovely young daughter in one of the prominent first families of Marion and a career social worker for the YWCA. Trying to keep their ardent affair secret in the small town, Anderson avidly courted the socially prominent and much younger Miss Copenhaver while at the same time trying to free himself from his embittered third wife and overcome the disadvantages of his age and his lover's family's distrust of him.Having by the end of 1931 continued for three years his surreptitious and consuming affair with Miss Copenhaver, Anderson determined on the first day of 1932 that the new year should be the year of decisions for him to gain his love in marriage or perhaps to end his life, and he began the new year with a creative venture unique in literature. Starting on January1, Anderson secretly wrote and hid away for Eleanor Copenhaver to find after his eventual death one letter each day, letters that she should someday discover, whether they had ever become married or not, and thereby relive in her memory their days of intense lovemaking a mutual despair about their then-unlikely marriage.Found by Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson only at Sherwood Anderson's death in 1941 and then preserved intact by this grieving widow who had married Anderson in 1933, the carefully hidden letters of 1932 recording their intense and seemingly doomed love affair have remained secret until now. Chosen by Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson before her death in 1985 to publish her husband's secret love letters, Anderson scholar Ray Lewis White has prepared a fascinating edition of these unique letters for the enjoyment of students and scholars of literature as well as for all other readers who savor compelling and inspiring stories of loss and love.

Sherwood Anderson, an important American novelist and short-story writer of the early twentieth century, is probably best known for his novel Winesburg, Ohio. His realistic and nonformulaic writing style would influence the next generation of authors, most notably Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Walter Rideout’s Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America is a seminal work that reintroduces us to this important, yet recently neglected, American writer, giving him long overdue attention. This second volume of the monumental two-volume work covers Anderson’s life after his move in the mid-1920s to “Ripshin,” his house near Marion, Virginia (where Volume 1 ended.) The second volume covers his return to business pursuits; his extensive travels in the South touring factories, which resulted in his political involvement in labor struggles and several books on the topic; and finally his unexpected death in 1941. No other existing Anderson biography, the most recent of which was published nearly twenty years ago, is as thoroughly researched, so extensively based on primary sources and interviews with a range of Anderson’s friends and family members, or as complete in its vision of the man and the writer. Rideout uncovers much new information about events and people in Anderson’s life and provides a new perspective on many of his works. This two-volume biography presents Anderson’s many remarkable attributes more clearly than ever before, while astutely placing his life and writings in the broader social, political, and artistic movements of his times. Outstanding Book, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Association Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine Winner, Biography Award, Society of Midland Authors

Based on an analysis of Sherwood Anderson's letters, this study explores the novelist's principal inspiration during his final years (1938-1941): his exposure to Latin America. Thematically arranged correspondence traces his positive reception in South America--a place he saw as a source of fresh ideas and publishing opportunities--his desire to promote cultural relations between the two Americas, and his legacy among Spanish-speaking readers. The author discusses the political and economic climates of mid-20th century South American nations, their emerging liberal ideologies and the concerns Latin American readers had regarding societal upheaval, urbanization and the inequities of capitalism--all vividly depicted in Anderson's works.

Southern Odyssey contains the best of Sherwood Anderson's writings about the region where he spent the last sixteen years of his life. In more than forty selections of journalism and fiction, Anderson explores the people and problems of the South. The pieces collected here present Anderson's perceptive vision of the South, combining his love for the region with the fresh observations of an outsider. His work reflects a range of issues that engaged all southerners at a crucial time in their history--the Great Depression, the influence of the New Deal, the painful transition from agriculture to mechanization, the struggle of labor to unionize, and the elemental divisions of race--always with an eye toward the human side of things. Anderson's impressions and convictions concerning his southern experience encompassed more than its troubles, however. He also wrote of the splendor of a Shenandoah spring and the strength of character of the native people. Southern Odyssey is more than a personal record--it is a gallery of southern portraits, drawn in the style that distinguishes Anderson's prose at its best.

Sherwood Anderson, remembered chiefly as a writer of short stories about life in the Midwest at the turn of the century, was acknowledged as an innovator of the short story form. This book looks at Anderson's early fiction from contemporary interpretative methodologies, particularly from poststructuralist approaches.

The Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, Volume One, surveys the lives and writings of nearly 400 Midwestern authors and identifies some of the most important criticism of their writings. The Dictionary is based on the belief that the literature of any region simultaneously captures the experience and influences the worldview of its people, reflecting as well as shaping the evolving sense of individual and collective identity, meaning, and values. Volume One presents individual lives and literary orientations and offers a broad survey of the Midwestern experience as expressed by its many diverse peoples over time.Philip A. Greasley's introduction fills in background information and describes the philosophy, focus, methodology, content, and layout of entries, as well as criteria for their inclusion. An extended lead-essay, "The Origins and Development of the Literature of the Midwest," by David D. Anderson, provides a historical, cultural, and literary context in which the lives and writings of individual authors can be considered.This volume is the first of an ambitious three-volume series sponsored by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature and created by its members. Volume Two will provide similar coverage of non-author entries, such as sites, centers, movements, influences, themes, and genres. Volume Three will be a literary history of the Midwest. One goal of the series is to build understanding of the nature, importance, and influence of Midwestern writers and literature. Another is to provide information on writers from the early years of the Midwestern experience, as well as those now emerging, who are typically absent from existing reference works.

Friends and colleagues honor the 30-year career of Appalachian-born literature scholar White with 15 essays. Their goal is to call attention to ideas or connections that demand a reappraisal of conventional attitudes or ingrained responses. Spanning from the middle 19th century to the present, they consider such well known authors as Hawthorne, Cather, and Welty but also some less known ones such as Wallace Stegner, Dunstan Thomas, and neglected Civil War poets. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This set treats the whole of American literature, from the European discovery of America to the present, with entries in alphabetical order. Each of the 350 substantive essays is a major interpretive contribution. Well-known critics and scholars provide clear and vividly written essays thatreflect the latest scholarship on a given topic, as well as original thinking on the part of the critic. The Encyclopedia is available in print and as an e-reference text from Oxford's Digital Reference Shelf.At the core of the encyclopedia lie 250 essays on poets, playwrights, essayists, and novelists. The most prominent figures (such as Whitman, Melville, Faulkner, Frost, Morrison, and so forth) are treated at considerable length (10,000 words) by top-flight critics. Less well known figures arediscussed in essays ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words. Each essay examines the life of the author in the context of his or her times, looking in detail at key works and describing the arc of the writer's career. These essays include an assessment of the writer's current reputation with abibliography of major works by the writer as well as a list of major critical and biographical works about the writer under discussion.A second key element of the project is the critical assessments of major American masterworks, such as Moby-Dick, Song of Myself, Walden, The Great Gatsby, The Waste Land, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Death of a Salesmanr, or Beloved. Each of these essays offers a close reading of the given work,placing that work in its historical context and offering a range of possibilities with regard to critical approach. These fifty essays (ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 words) are simply and clearly enough written that an intelligent high school student should easily understand them, but sophisticatedenough that a college student or general reader in a public library will find the essays both informative and stimulating.The final major element of this encyclopedia consists of fifty-odd essays on literary movements, periods, or themes, pulling together a broad range of information and making interesting connections. These essays treat many of the same authors already discussed, but in a different context; they alsogather into the fold authors who do not have an entire essay on their work (so that Zane Grey, for example, is discussed in an essay on Western literature but does not have an essay to himself). In this way, the project is truly "encyclopedic," in the conventional sense. These essays aim forcomprehensiveness without losing anything of the narrative force that makes them good reading in their own right.In a very real fashion, the literature of the American people reflects their deepest desires, aspirations, fears, and fantasies. The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature gathers a wide range of information that illumines the field itself and clarifies many of its particulars.

In The Human Tradition in the New South, historian James C. Klotter brings together twelve biographical essays that explore the region's political, economic, and social development since the Civil War. Like all books in this series, these essays chronicle the lives of ordinary Americans whose lives and contributions help to highlight the great transformations that occurred in the South. With profiles ranging from Winnie Davis to Dizzy Dean, from Ralph David Abernathy to Harland Sanders, The Human Tradition in the New South brings to life this dynamic and vibrant region and is an excellent resource for courses in Southern history, race relations, social history, and the American history survey.