Sherwood Anderson Remembered (American Writers Remembered),New

Product Description A collection of reminiscences illuminating the life of an elusive, groundbreaking American writer In 1912, Sherwood Anderson suffered the mental and artistic break that has since become a firmly embedded legend in American literary history. A successful businessman in Ohio, he began to speak incoherently while dictating a letter at his desk and walked out of his office, to be found four days later and a hundred miles away, disoriented and exhausted. Within weeks, he had quit his former life, moved to Chicago, and become the writer who would produce, among other works, Winesburg, Ohio, the landmark collection of stories which transformed American literature by disregarding the norms of realism and naturalism and foregrounding the lyrical voices of the isolated in a distinctive, modern way. Anderson served as a mentor to writers like Faulkner and Hemingway early in their careers and befriended a remarkable number of American writers, among them, Carl Sandburg, Ben Hecht, John Dos Passos, James T. Farrell, Gertrude Stein, Henry Miller, and Anita Loos. Anderson was notoriously elusive, and autobiographical accounts of his breakdown and life vary wildly. Sherwood Anderson Remembered offers an intimate account of Anderson and the impressions he made on his contemporaries. The anecdotes collected in this volume constitute some of the best and most vivid assessments of his personality and work available. Together they create a richly detailed account of an individual who left an indelible mark on those touched by his presence and his words. Review Recent scholarly interest in Sherwood Anderson has focused on his poetry, his early fiction, and his famous collection of interrelated stories. Andersons life has also been the subject of careful scrutiny, e.g., in Walter Rideout's exhaustive, definitive biography, Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America. Now Taylor enhances this previous scholarship by collecting reminiscences of 49 people who were personally acquainted with Anderson at various periods in his life, among them William Faulkner, Ben Hecht, Anita Loos, Henry Miller, and Gertrude Stein. These riveting recollections reveal Anderson's elusive self, and the editor provides introductions identifying those included. Recommended.' CHOICE These reminiscences are excellent, offering an enlightening picture and interpretation of Anderson as a personality and a writer. . . . Were I still teaching a 20thCentury American Literature survey, I would be raiding these recollections mercilessly to bring alive in the classroom the otherwise hazy figure of the author who wrote the magnificent Winesburg, Ohio. Scott Donaldson, author of Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship, and Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poet's Life From the Publisher These reminiscences are excellent, offering an enlightening picture and interpretation of Anderson as a personality and a writer. . . . Were I still teaching a 20thCentury American Literature survey, I would be raiding these recollections mercilessly to bring alive in the classroom the otherwise hazy figure of the author who wrote the magnificent Winesburg, Ohio.Scott Donaldson, author of Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald: The Rise and Fall of a Literary Friendship, and Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poets Life About the Author Welford Dunaway Taylor is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Richmond. He is author of numerous works on American literature and culture, including Robert Frost and J. J. Lankes: Riders on Pegasus, Southern Odyssey: Selected Writings by Sherwood Anderson, and The Newsprint Mask: The Tradition of Fictional Journalism in America.