Sherwood Anderson was born on September 13, 1876, into the family of a
house-painter in Camden, Ohio. He worked as a newsboy, a house-painter,
and a stable groom until he moved to Chicago at the age of 17. There he
attended business classes at night, while having a day job as a
warehouse laborer. After his military service in Cuba during the
Spanish-American war, he returned to Ohio and graduated from Wittenberg
College in Springfield, Ohio. His marriage didn't work, and he moved to
Chicago again. There he joined the Chicago Group of writers, which also
included Theodore Dreiser,
Carl Sandburg, and Edgar Lee Masters. They
led the so-called Chicago Literary Renessance between 1900 and 1930.
After the success of his books, "Winesburg, Ohio" (1917) and "The
Triumphs of the Egg" (1921) Andersen received his first
'Dial' Award
for his contribution to American Literature. He went traveling and
became part of the expatriate community in Europe during the 1920s. In
Paris he met Gertrude Stein,
whom he much admired. He encouraged
Ernest Hemingway in his writing
aspirations. He also gave him a letter of recommendation to
Gertrude Stein, pushing Hemingway to move
to Paris from Chicago, where they met in 1921. Their friendship broke
after Anderson's "Dark Laughter" (1925) prompted the satirical
"Torrents of Spring", a parody of Anderson by Hemingway.
Andersen completed the "Dark Laughter" (1925) in New Orleans, where he
shared an apartment with
William Faulkner, who was also
inspired by Anderson's works. In 1926 he moved to Marion, Virginia,
where he built a home. There Anderson bought two weekly newspapers, one
Republican, one Democrat, and edited both for 2 years. He was lecturing
around the country and studied the labor conditions during the
Depression. He wrote, " . . .
Joseph Conrad said that a writer
only began to live after he began to write. It pleased me to think I
was after all but ten years old. Plenty of time ahead for such a young
one." He died of peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick, during his
private trip to Panama Canal, on March 8, 1941.
