Winesburg, Ohio has since been acclaimed a timeless classic with generational and universal themes, illustrating that even as Anderson wrote his first two novels he was also creating a quality text.Īlthough Anderson was writing about Ohio small town life in Winesburg, Ohio, he was also commenting on urban America and the isolation of modern society the post-World War I generation was disillusioned by and would discuss in detail following Anderson's great work. Often throughout Anderson's career, however, he would publish works that he knew were flawed and was thus often criticized by critics who were not able to separate his weaker works from the fine ones. Marching Men, his second novel, and the first book he published were considered by Anderson to be immature works of which he was never really proud. Though he did not reject business values completely as he liked to claim after his breakdown, he did give much more time to his creative writing hobby and was able to publish his first book, a novel Windy McPherson's Son, in 1916. After this event, he left his life in Elyria, Ohio and returned to Chicago, with his family, to his old job writing advertisement copy. The book however was written while Anderson was in Chicago, three to four years after his mid-life crisis of 1912. The impressions he gained from the town life and character of Clyde explains why he gave the book the subtitle, 'A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life.' The hero's mother, Elizabeth Willard, dies at the same age as Anderson's mother did. Many of the tales were based on a life Anderson had witnessed in Clyde, Ohio, the town where he spent most of his childhood and adolescent years. The story 'Godliness' was not originally written as part of the collection but was salvaged by Anderson from a failed novel attempt in 1917. The majority were finished by the middle of 1916.

Sherwood Anderson began writing the short stories, relatively in order, during the late fall of 1915.

Winesburg ohio novel