Sherwood Anderson

A Biographical and Critical Study

Irving Howe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781041327639
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040933725
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Originally published in 1951 and reissued in 1966 this book combines stimulating biography with sound literary criticism in its account of a writer who observed America's great nineteenth century change from an agrarian to an industrial society. Irving Howe places Anderson in the cultural context of his times and gives a fresh and balanced judgment both of his virtues and limitations. As an artist, the author of Winesburg, Ohio and Dark Laughter was over-valued and then ignored; Howe concludes that the best of Anderson's work is a durable part of the American literary structure and an enrichment of the American imagination.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author's Note, 1966
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Half Title page
• “A Fair and Sweet Town”
• Success and Consequences
• “A Will to Splendor”
• The Book of the Grotesque
• Conditions of Fame
• The Short Stories
• In the Lawrencian Orbit
• The Downward Curve
• Final Wanderings
• An American as Artist
• Bibliographical Note
• Indexes