Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life

Sherwood Anderson writes almost as if he were eavesdropping on the private domestic lives of a small Ohio town's inhabitants in the early 1900's. The central figure, George Willard, is a young budding journalist working for the local paper who allows the listener in on the latest gossip being circulated in this casual study of the insular Midwest, when America was still growing up.

This timeless collection charted a new stylistic path for modern fiction. Through twenty-two connected short stories, Sherwood Anderson looks into the lives of the inhabitants of a small town in the American heartland. These psychological portraits of the sensitive and imaginative of Winesburg’s population are seen through the eyes of a young reporter-narrator, George Willard. Their stories are about loneliness and alienation, passion and virginity, wealth and poverty, thrift and profligacy, carelessness and abandon. With its simple and intense style, Winesburg, Ohio evokes the quiet moments of epiphany in the lives of ordinary men and women.

Table of Contents
1. The Book of the Grotesque
2. Hands-concerning Wing Biddlebaum
3. Paper Pills-concerning Doctor Reefy
4. Mother-concerning Elizabeth Willard
5. The Philosopher-concerning Doctor Parcival
6. Nobody Knows-concerning Louise Trunnion
7. Godliness , Parts I and II-concerning Jesse Bentley
8. Godliness , Surrender (Part III)-concerning Louise Bentley
9. Godliness , Terror (Part IV)-concerning David Hardy
10. A Man of Ideas-concerning Joe Welling
11. Adventure-concerning Alice Hindman
12. Respectability-concerning Wash Williams
13. The Thinker-concerning Seth Richmond
14. Tandy-concerning Tandy Hard
15. The Strength of God-concerning The Reverend Curtis Hartman
16. The Teacher-concerning Kate Swift
17. Loneliness-concerning Enoch Robinson
18. An Awakening-concerning Belle Carpenter
19. “Queer”-concerning Elmer Cowley
20. The Untold Lie-concerning Ray Pearson
21. Drink-concerning Tom Foster
22. Death-concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard
23. Sophistication-concerning Helen White
24. Departure-concerning George Willard