Winesburg, Ohio: Text and Criticism (Critical Library, Viking)
Born in 1876,Sherwood Andersongrew up in a small town in Ohio—an experience that was the basis of his greatest achievements as a writer.  He served in the Spanish-American War, worked as an advertising man, and managed an Ohio paint factory before abandoning both job and family to embark on a literary career in Chicago.  His first novel,Windy McPherson's Son, was published in 1916; his second,Marching Men, a characteristic study of the individual in conflict with industrial society, appeared in 1917.  But it isWinesburg, Ohio(1919), with its disillusioned view of small-town lives, that is generally considered his masterpiece.  Later novels—Poor White,Many Marriages, andDark Laughter—continued to depict the spiritual poverty of the machine age.  Anderson died in 1941.