Winesburg, Ohio (Oxford World's Classics)

Anderson, Sherwood

ISBN 10: 0199540721 ISBN 13: 9780199540723

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is Sherwood Anderson's masterpiece, a cycle of short stories concerning life in a small town at the end of the nineteenth century. At the center is George Willard, a young reporter who becomes the confidant of the town's solitary figures. Anderson's stories influenced countless American writers including Hemingway, Faulkner, Updike, Oates and Carver. This new edition corrects errors made in earlier editions and takes into account major criticism and textual scholarship of the last several decades.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

About this title

Review:

Library Journal praised this edition of Sherwood Anderson's famed short stories as "the finest edition of this seminal work available." Reconstructed to be as close to the original text as possible, Winesburg, Ohio depicts the strange, secret lives of the inhabitants of a small town. In "Hands," Wing Biddlebaum tries to hide the tale of his banishment from a Pennsylvania town, a tale represented by his hands. In "Adventure," lonely Alice Hindman impulsively walks naked into the night rain. Threaded through the stories is the viewpoint of George Willard, the young newspaper reporter who, like his creator, stands witness to the dark and despairing dealings of a community of isolated people.

From the Back Cover:

In 1919 a middle-aged Chicago advertising writer from Ohio, a failure as a businessman, husband, and father, published a slim yellow book of short stories intended to "reform" American literature. Sherwood Anderson strove to portray the buried inner lives of "pathetic grotesques" - people wounded by life in body or spirit - and to tell their stories in short revelations rather than in sweeping novels. Against all expectations, Winesburg Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life accomplished what its author intended. Afterwards, American literature would be written and read differently. Writers of short fiction learned from Anderson to achieve both character-centered form and daring Modernist subject matter. Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, authorized by the Sherwood Anderson Literary Estate Trust, is an expert text, in that Ray Lewis White has consulted all Anderson manuscripts, typescripts, letters, diaries, and all editions of the book to present the masterpiece as it was intended. White's edition also is informed by his 35 years of experience in editing, studying, and appreciating Sherwood Anderson and his fiction. New to this edition of Winesburg, Ohio are historical and cultural annotations, documentation of changes of various editions, identification of the Ohio originals of Anderson's characters; and maps of the real town of Clyde, in North Central Ohio, which was the basis of Anderson's fictional account. Included as well are unique photographs of Anderson and Clyde that deepen knowledge and feeling for the author's time and his work.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0199540721
• ISBN 13: 9780199540723
• Binding: Pocket Book
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Love Glen A.