Novels
Out of Nowhere into NothingWinesburg, Ohio
Short Stories
BrothersI Want to Know Why
Motherhood
Seeds
Senility
The Door of the Trap
The Dumb Man
The Egg
The Man in the Brown Coat
The New Englander
The Other Woman
Unlighted Lamps
War
Sherwood Anderson (Sept 13, 1876 - March 8, 1941) was an American writer. Like a number of other famous writers (Chekhov, Dickens, Alcott, etc), Sherwood's childhood and adolescence knew family hardship. When his father's business failed, the family moved around a lot and his mother began to drink heavily. Anderson left school at the age fourteen in order to help the family finances.
As a writer he is widely known for his short stories, particularly the collection published as Winesburg, Ohio. The book is not without critics, but it will always be a special one for me. I probably read it at the just right time in my life, budding with some worldly sophistication but still loaded with youthful ignorance. I was a willing reader and bought into every character and ever sketch, but in a tribute to Anderson's talents, I also recall being acutely aware of the author's control as I read through the stories and afterward I may have spent as much time thinking about the man who wrote it as the stories themselves.
If you have not read Winesburg, Ohio, I encourage you to do so.