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Portraits from our Past:
FAMOUS AUTHORS
Southwest Virginia Author
1876-1941
On November 3, 1927, a curious
three-paragraph story appeared in the Smyth County News, a weekly
newspaper published in Marion. Located between accounts of the
local high school football game and an advertisement was the
headline "Fooled Again." The story read: "Your
new editor came into town Monday. Children prancing in the streets
at night, dancing, song, laughter, cheers. Girls and boys in
fancy costumes. Fool that I am. I thought it was because all
Marion was so glad the new editor had arrived. It was only Halloween."
The new editor was Sherwood Anderson, one of the most important
American writers of the 20th century. He was already world-famous
when he bought the Republican oriented Smyth County news and
its sister paper the Marion Democrat.
Anderson was born on September 13, 1876 in Camden, Ohio. He served
as a volunteer in the Spanish American War, after which, he completed
high school in Ohio. This led to a series of jobs including a
copywriter for a Chicago advertising agency and chief owner and
manager of a paint factory. In 1910, Anderson's first book Windy
McPherson's Son was published which received much critical praise.
This was quickly followed by two more novels Marching Men and
Mid-American Chants. During this time, Anderson became disillusioned
with his entrepreneurial life and began writing full-time. In
1919, Anderson published his masterpiece, Winesburg, Ohio, a
collection of short stories about a fictional small town, and
in 1925 Dark Laughter, his only best selling novel.
Throughout his lifetime, Anderson published eight novels, four
collections of short stories, three books of poems and plays,
more than 300 articles, reviews, and essays, and three volumes
of autobiographies. What caused one of the best-known writers
of his day to take up the life of a country newspaper editor?
Anderson wrote that he "had grown tired of city life and
wanted the quiet intimacy of life in a smaller place….he
wanted to get back into closer association with all kinds of
people in their everyday lives." In his memoirs, Anderson
explains his writing style and word choice, "There was a
language of the streets, of American towns and cities, of the
factories and warehouses where I had worked". Sherwood Anderson
wrote stories of the American experience that all people could
appreciate.
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