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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.Book Description

'Here [is] a new order of short story,' said H. L. Mencken when Winesburg, Ohio was published in 1919. 'It is so vivid, so full of insight, so shiningly life-like and glowing, that the book is lifted into a category all its own.' Indeed, Sherwood Anderson's timeless cycle of loosely connected tales--in which a young reporter named George Willard probes the hopes, dreams, and fears of the solitary people in a small Midwestern town at the turn of the century--embraced a new frankness and realism that ushered American literature into the modern age. 'There are moments in American life to which Anderson gave not only the first but the final expression,' wrote Malcolm Cowley. 'Winesburg, Ohio is far from the pessimistic or morbidly sexual work it was once attacked for being. Instead it is a work of love, an attempt to break down the walls of loneliness, and, in its own fashion, a celebration of small-town life in the lost days of good will and innocence.'
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Sherwood Anderson's timeless cycle of loosely connected tales--in which a young reporter named George Willard probes the hopes, dreams, and fears of the solitary people in a small Midwestern town at the turn of the century--embraced a new frankness and realism that ushered American literature into the modern age. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (73)

Like Dreiser, Anderson Depicts What Happens to Real People in Real America [24]
This is one of those books which juxtaposes stereotypes with realities.This is an amazingly well written book delivered in amazingly clever style.

The book is about the good life in the small town of Winesburg, where the good life is not so good for all of the folks. The warm and fuzzy people in Winesburg can be as cold and abrasive as the city folk. Young lovers in Winesburg can grow to become old people who hate one another.A momentary mistake in judgment can become an everlasting scar on one's integrity among peers in Winesburg. Best intentions by grandparents to grandchildren can be received in a worst manner. Winesburg is the All American City where bad things can happen to good people.

Like his peer, Theodore Dreiser ("Sister Carrie" and "An American Tragedy"), Anderson depicts American ideals in less than appealing colors.True stories, or fictional accounts, include failures as well as successes. Most people are donned as ordinary, and the extraordinary worthy of literature are often the happiest 5% and the saddest 5%. Anderson concentrates on the latter.

But, do not believe this is droll or mundane reading about others' hard luck.This book is indicative of its time. Not belabored by overly aggressive use of the English language, it flows easily in its narrative.Like shipyard yarns, you must hear or read more.The stories snare you. And, you seem to want to read the next when you finish what you thought to be your last.

Before I started, I read that this was a group of short stories which all take place in Winesburg.I think one could also describe the book as a novel about George Willard which is delivered in a short-story format.It discusses young journalist Willard's observations of his town and how he, like Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey of "It's a Wonderful Life", is busting to get out of his small town.

And, this book - written a century ago- amazingly reads well today. Anderson really hit a chord with this reader with this book.

Beginning of American Literature
Let's just start with the fact that Faulkner, Hemingway, and Wolfe worshiped at this man's feet and that this book is the reason why.There are many reviewers here that just can't figure out what the author is trying to get across.How is that possible?He states it flat out in just about every story, but in the Book of the Grotesque, he's abundantly clear.We each seize upon an obsession that deforms us to the point that we are incommunicable to each other.Anderson then goes on to observe case studies of that dynamic in action.

This book is completely underrated for its impact.If you wonder why you begin to enjoy short stories right around 1920, this is the reason.Anderson created the purely psychological revelatory ending.It took Raymond Carver to knock that out of vogue, but it was vulnerable primarily because it had been done so many times.I will stand fully behind the arguement that the only short story worth your time before this is Joyce's The Dead, and that's because it has an Andersonesque ending.If anyone can provide another example, I'm dying to know.

Anderson created the modern short story with this book.He lost credibility later because he wasn't able to follow this stunning first act.However, he inspired and mentored America's next generation of authors, and his relegation to the literary dung heap is absurd.Granted that he took almost his entire mood and subject matter from Spoon River Anthology, but he certainly delivered a masterpiece in short order.

All of Anderson's short stories are worthwhile, and I wish that you could easily find his later collections in print.Triumph of the Egg, Horses and Men, and Death in the Woods are each spectacular collections, but don't have the cohesion of Winesburg.Individually, however, there are stronger stories in the other collections, so seek them out if you like Winesburg.Anderson finds the mythic in the commonplace and presents it in the language of the common man of the time.It's inspiring, and nobel prize winning careers have been made in the attempt to pull off the same effect.Only Faulkner can claim to have succeeded.

bizarre, depressing
I have read this book and yet I am still trying to figure out what the author was trying to get across. The bookd just left me with a somewhat depressed, glad-it-is-over feeling.I grew up in a small town in ohio and yes, there are someweirdos there just like any other town or city, no more no less.With that in mind, I did not get any kind of a "message" from the book--unless it would be to avoid small Ohio towns because of the weirdos.The book was not written in an enjoyable, entertaining fashion, so I don't think entertainment was the intent.As for being a "social commentary" on the times or a "snapshot" of Ohio history--I surely hope not--this town is out of the norm, not a representation of it. This book is just a schizophrenic collection of rather bizarre, boring people with no philosophical or historical point, no entertainment, no social commentary, not even amateur "reporting". Strange.

Well, ain't that America..
There was one particular scene (Chapter entitled 'Drink') toward the end of the novel that for me truly exemplifies one of the main points of this American masterpiece.In this poignant scene, a poor old woman and her orphaned, young grandson Tom are riding along in a train headed toward Winesburg.They were leaving Cincinnati in hopes to build a new life.The old woman grew up in Winesburg and was so gung ho about going back to her old town that as the train pressed on, she began to tell Tom how 'he would enjoy his life working in the fields and shooting wild things in the woods there.'She was delighted and excited about living in a small, close-knit community again.However, when the train finally arrived in Winesburg her excitement and delight turned to confusion, disappointment, and fear.For now, the once tiny village had now grown (in the past fifty years) into a large, flourishing town.She was so shocked upon her arrival that she didn't even want to get off of the train.She then turned to her grandson and said, "It isn't what I thought. It maybe hard for you here."

I remember when I read this passage above, for my heart began to ache.I knew exactly what she was thinking and I could feel her pain!

This novel is essentially made up of a group of short stories about the townsfolk of Winesburg, Ohio in the early 1900's.However, it could be any town anywhere in America and it could take place at anytime, including today.All of the citizens, although completely unique and different from one another, each share one thing in common - they are all lost and searching for something that will bring meaning into their lonely lives.However, no matter what the "Saturday Evening Post" might tell you, life in small-town America isn't all that grand - especially if you are a man like our main protagonist George Willard.A man, like many of the other characters he comes in contact with in the novel, who secretly yearns to escape the narrow-mindedness of the mediocrity which reigns supreme in small-town, USA.However, the real conundrum is this - while George and the others are looking for a way out of the madness, they are also all searching and hankering for a sense of community and belonging.They wish to connect, they can't connect, they then become lonely and disillusioned and stir crazy.Eventually, like so many other people in their same situation, they feel trapped.Dean Koontz may sum it up best when he perceptively points out in his 'Afterword' of the novel, "these characters are repressed by their culture but equally by their inability to deal with their ambivalence, an indecisiveness that reduces them to bundles of potential energy without hope of expression."

I can't recommend this one enough.It's too bad Anderson's classic will pretty much go down in history as a one-hit wonder (although he has written many excellent short stories).I really, really loved his style of writing and apparently he influenced such American literary legends as Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and John Steinbeck to name a few.To me, I think it is Steinbeck who most resembles Anderson's style.They both are really able to capture the true essence of the common man:"The thing to learn is to know what people are thinking about, not what they say. p. 161"I used to believe that Steinbeck was the greatest writer when it came to really understanding the true embodiment of the common, American man.It's the reason I love him so.He was able to dig the deepest into our hearts, minds, and souls and see the parts of us that even we fail to see 97% of the time.That being said, Anderson, in "Winesburg, Ohio", is able to dig even deeper believe it or not.I think one of the secrets to this is because both of these men were more than just writers.They both held a variety of different jobs and surrounded themselves with the 'common man' much more so than that of other great writers who spent their life hanging out with like-kind fellows and never had all that real world experience.In many ways, they were the common man!However, that's just one simple man's simple opinion.

When all said and done, this classic novel will have you thinking about it for a long time after you've finished reading it.I had one hec of a time trying to put it down.It's a quick read, but it's a read that will stay with me for a long, long time.I will never forget it and wouldn't hesitate recommending it to all of you bibliophiles out there.Easily, easily, easily a five-star pearl!

Powerful Collage of 19th Century Lives
Strong writing in a powerful collage of lives from 19th-century Ohio. Anderson strategically tells the stories he wants to tell, not the ones people wanted to hear at the time, stories of pain and isolation, unrequitted love and desire for commercial success. It's a little-known staple of American Literature.

-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

A Landmark of American Literature
WINESBURG, OHIO is a book I'd heard of since I became aware of literature. I wondered whether it was passe' or dated, or might somehow hold my interest. Rather than turn its pages, I heard it 'performed', this past week, on audiocassette in my car as I drove to and form work and other places.

I found it to be strangely 'relevant'. Anderson wrote intimately of the people in a small midwesten town, as the industrial/railroad age was in full swing in America and the age of the automobile had not really arrived yet. But the people he writes of shared, for me, much of the modern sensibility of isolation and alienation that became the basis for much later writing. The gallery of mostly 'grotesques', as Anderson calls them in his introductory piece, bears resemblance in many ways to the denizens of a rooming house in a large city. Each has his/her scars that have caused the bloom of the person's youth to congeal in an isolated, armored middle or old age. There are, fortunately, a few exceptions to this model, a few souls who yet have a chance, and indeed, the protagonist figure, who is most likely a stand-in for the author, leaves town at book's end for a new life in an unspecified city.

Most of the interesting characters, though, whether farmers or inhabitants of the town, are stuck, living on a thin gruel of memory or delusion, as a result of some earlier circumstance or trauma.

The most memorable tale, entitled 'Godliness', follows the life of a young man who went off to Cleveland to study for the ministry, and is called back to run the family farm when all his brothers are killed in the Civil War (whose ghosts haunt this book) . He sees himself as a biblical Abraham, and the rest of the farmers in the valley appear to him as the Phillistines, whose land he feels destined to own. The man, named Jesse, like the father of King David, is a fascinating admixture of strong character and dangerous delusion. Of course he feels positively destined to have a male heir, whom he will name David, and when his only child is a girl, he feels cheated, and denies her love. She finally has a son, whom of course they name David, but the story STILL eludes Jesse's control in powerful, ironic ways.

I'm glad I've finally experienced WINESBURG, OHIO. There's too much literature in the world, it seems to me, for any one person to be well-versed. But I like it when I can fill in some of the obvious potholes in my background.

Not a Flat Character
In Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, the main character of the book is George Willard. George Willard is a reporter for the local newspaper, the Winesburg Eagle. When first looking at the book, one would think that George is a flat character, but after looking back through, one may discover that George Willard is as round as a character can get.
George Willard has the ability to make friends with people in Winesburg that other people don't associate with, and ends up bringing out the best in them. For example, when George befriends Wing Biddlebaum, he is able to draw Wing out of his shell and understand partially why he is always keeping to himself. "There's something wrong, but I don't want to know what it is. His hands have something to do with his fear of me and of everyone" (11). Another that George is able to communicate with is Doctor Parcival, a crazy old man that showed up in Winesburg about five years ago. He would talk all day to George about his travels and life (22).
George Willard grows in the book by some of his experiences with women, such as Louise Trunnion and Kate Swift. When George was seeing Louise, it was because he had received a letter saying, `"I'm yours if you want me."' When George had arrived at Louise's house, he was greeted by, `"How do you know I want to go out with you,' she said sulkily. `What makes you so sure?"' He was upset and confused by the situation, but Louise still went out with him (28). When it came to Kate Swift though, George was somewhat better off due to the fact that she also had feelings for George. "He took a pillow into his arms and embraced it thinking first of the school teacher, who by her words had stirred something within him . . ." (86). After spending time with Kate, he realized that she is a woman, and he is a man.
" She was a teacher but she was also a woman. As she looked at George Willard,
the passionate desire to be loved by a man, that had a thousand times before swept like a storm over her body, took possession of her. In the lamplight George Willard looked no longer a boy, but a man ready to play the part of a man."
Something snaps inside Kate Swift and she erupts into a violent fit striking George, and leaving him alone and confused (90-91).
At first glance, George doesn't make any moral choices, but when you look back, you realize that he does by standing up for someone. When George Willard is talking to Seth Richmond, he asks Seth to go talk to Helen White for him. `"I've been trying to write a love story, . . . I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to fall in love. I've been sitting here and thinking it over and I'm going to do it"' (73). Seth is irritated with this rash statement, but nothing else happens. Later on when George meets Tom Foster, Tom is drunk, and saying things about Helen that George knows is not true. "The drunken boy talked of Helen White and said he had been with her on the shore of a sea and had made love to her. George had seen Helen White walking in the street with her father during the evening." Hearing Tom Foster talk about Helen like that infuriated George and told him, "I won't let Helen White's name be dragged into this. I won't let that happen" (121).
George Willard is an emotionally deep person; he just doesn't always show it.
When Aunt Elizabeth Swift comes to watch over the body of Elizabeth Willard, George breaks down and lets the realization that his mother has passed, sink in. "He put his hand into hers and began to sob, shaking his head from side to side, half blind with grief. `My mother is dead,' he said,"' (129).
George Willard is a round main character and should be recognized as such.

Stories that interrelate in surprising, often brilliant ways
When I discovered this book, I was already writing a story cycle of my own, The Acorn Stories. Winesburg, Ohio became a strong influence on that book, and also led me to write New Readings of Winesburg, Ohio. In Sherwood Anderson's acclaimed story cycle, a small town finds itself entering the twentieth century with loneliness and confusion. The same industrialism that Anderson would explore so well in his novel Poor White also asserts itself constantly here, turning a beautiful landscape into a sometimes desecrated one.

The young reporter George Willard appears in most of the stories, providing a connection for people who feel they lack connection and a voice for people who feel they lack a voice. Though many readers consider this book a bleak and disjointed novel, I consider it a collection of stories that interrelate in surprising, often brilliant ways. As for the bleak part, please also look at the many moments of comfort, the many sparks of inspiration.

I eventually lost track of how many times I read Winesburg, Ohio. I just know I'll read it again. ... Read more

Book Description
A perceptive early study of Sherwood Anderson. Surveys Anderson's relationship to America, his early novels, the short stories, Winesburg, Ohio, the later novels, poetry, autobiographical writings and essays. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Insightful and unguarded.
These letters won't refute Anderson's reputation for being sentimental. If you don't mind that, this book gives insight into a writer who greatly loved humanity, especially the woman he called "E." ... Read more

Book Description
A moving narrative about the lives of inarticulate men and women in small-town America, Winesburg, Ohio is an exposé of that town's moral decay in the face of industrialization, isolation, and frustration. ... Read more

Book Description
Inspired by Anderson's Midwestern boyhood and his adulthood in early 20th-century Chicago, this volume gave birth to the American story cycle, for which Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and later writers were forever indebted. Defying the prudish sensibilities of his time, Anderson embraced frankness and truth. Here we meet all those whose portraits brought the American short story into the modern age. ... Read more