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About Winesburg, Ohio: The iconic collection of small town American life stories

Sherwood Anderson was born on 13th September 1876 in Camden, Ohio. When his father’s business failed the family was forced to move on a regular basis before finally settling in Clyde, Ohio. Anderson, one of 7 children, left school at 14 to take a number of jobs to help with the family finances. These were difficult years. He moved to Chicago in search of opportunities before joining the Army for the US-Spanish War of 1898. He then entered Wittenberg Academy in Springfield, Ohio to complete his education before moving back to Chicago to take up a writing job. In 1904 he married Cornelia Lane, her family had resources and Anderson was keen, with this family backing, to run a business. The early years of their marriage produced 3 children but a nervous breakdown in 1907 and another in 1912, despite his success as a business entrepreneur, resulted in him abandoning his family and deciding that a literary career would be best for him. A move back to Chicago resulted in a job in advertising, a divorce from Cornelia and marriage to Tennessee Mitchell. That same year his first book ‘Windy McPherson’s Son’ was released and in 1919, his most famous book, ‘Winesburg, Ohio’, a collection of short stories about life in an Ohio town was released. Anderson continued to write short stories, novels and non-fiction but his only true bestseller came with ‘Dark Laughter’. His influence on writers that followed, from Faulkner to Hemingway, was immense. He also married a further two times. Sherwood Anderson died in in Colón, Panama, on the 8th March, 1941. He was 64. An autopsy revealed that a swallowed toothpick had resulted in peritonitis. His headstone epitaph reads ‘Life, Not Death is the Great Adventure.’