... there is within every human being a deep well of thinking over which a
heavy iron lid is kept clamped.Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is Sherwood
Anderson's masterpiece, a cycle of short stories concerning life in a small
Ohio town at the end of the nineteenth century. At the centre is George
Willard, a young reporter who becomes the confidant of the town's
`grotesques' - solitary figures unable tocommunicate with others. George is
their conduit for expression and solace from loneliness, but he has his own
longings which eventually draw him away from home to seek a career in the
city. He carries with him the dreams and unuttered words of remarkable
characters such as Wing Biddlebaum, thedisgraced former teacher, and the
story-telling Doctor Parcival.The book has influenced many American
writers, including ernest hemingway, William Faulkner, John Updike, Raymond
Carver, and Joyce Carol Oates. It reshaped the development of the modern
short story, turning the genre away from an emphasis upon plot towards a
capability for illuminating theemotional lives of ordinary people.This new
edition corrects errors in earlier editions and takes into account major
criticism and textual scholarship of the last several decades.