Classic Authors: Sherwood Anderson

The epitaph on Sherwood Anderson's headstone reads: "Life, Not Death, Is the Great Adventure." This statement seems especially appropriate for a man who seemed to have a difficult time settling for the mundane. He forsook a promising business career to write, married and divorced several women, and fell in love with various areas of the country. He wrote about everyday occurrences and ordinary people, turning the common lives into classic literature.

Sherwood Anderson was born on September 13, 1876, in Camden, Ohio. Most of his childhood, however, was spent in Clyde, Ohio. He attended school sporadically in Clyde.

He attended Wittenberg Academy, a prep school in Springfield, Ohio, for one year. Afterward, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as an advertising writer until 1906. In 1904, he married Cornelia Lane, with whom he had two sons and one daughter. The Lanes owned a prosperous mail-order paint business, at which Sherwood worked for several years. On November 18, 1912, he experienced a "psychological crisis," which caused him to walk away from his career and his family to write fiction. The breakdown seemed to have been brought about by marital and professional problems. He did return to his job until he could make enough money with his writing.

Theodore Dreiser and Floyd Dell urged Sherwood to contribute pieces to the literary journals of the day. Thus, he began submitting work to The Little Review, The Masses, Seven Arts, and Poetry. Dreiser and Dell were also instrumental in getting Sherwood's first two books published. His first book, Windy McPherson's Son appeared in 1916, his second, Marching Men in 1917. In the next decade, he published many works including Winesburg, Ohio(1919), which earned him the recognition he desired. Other important books include: Poor White(1920), The Triumph of the Egg(1921), Horses and Men(1923), and A Story Teller's Tale(1924).

In the meantime, Sherwood divorced Cornelia to marry Tennessee Mitchell, whom he divorced in 1924. In the same year, he married Elizabeth Prall, and the two moved to New Orleans. He spent the summer of 1925 vacationing in Troutdale, Virginia. He fell in love with the area, and bought property by Ripshin Creek. He built a house there which he called Ripshin.

In 1927, Sherwood Anderson purchased Marion Publishing Company in Marion, Virginia. He became the editor and publisher of two weekly papers. The articles which he wrote for the newspapers are collected in Hello Towns. The next year he divorced Elizabeth.

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