Sherwood Anderson, an important American novelist and short-story writer of the early twentieth century, is probably best known for his novel Winesburg, Ohio. His realistic and nonformulaic writing style would influence the next generation of authors, most notably Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.
Walter Rideout's "Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America" is a seminal work that reintroduces us to this important, yet recently neglected, American writer, giving him long overdue attention. This second volume of the monumental two-volume work covers Anderson's life after his move in the mid-1920s to "Ripshin," his house near Marion, Virginia (where Volume 1 ended.) The second volume covers his return to business pursuits; his extensive travels in the South touring factories, which resulted in his political involvement in labor struggles and several books on the topic; and finally his unexpected death in 1941.
No other existing Anderson biography, the most recent of which was published nearly twenty years ago, is as thoroughly researched, so extensively based on primary sources and interviews with a range of Anderson's friends and family members, or as complete in its vision of the man and the writer. Rideout uncovers much new information about events and people in Anderson's life and provides a new perspective on many of his works. This two-volume biography presents Anderson's many remarkable attributes more clearly than ever before, while astutely placing his life and writings in the broader social, political, and artistic movements of his times.

" Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America" is the definitive biography of this major American writer of novels and short stories, whose work includes the modern classic "Winesburg, Ohio." In the first volume of this monumental two-volume work, Walter Rideout chronicles the life of Anderson from his birth and his early business career through his beginnings as a writer and finally to his move in the mid-1920s to "Ripshin," his house near Marion, Virginia. The second volume will cover Anderson's return to business pursuits, his extensive travels in the South touring factories, which resulted in his political involvement in labor struggles and several books on the topic, and finally his unexpected death in 1941. No other existing Anderson biography, the most recent of which was published nearly twenty years ago, is as thoroughly researched, so extensively based on primary sources and interviews with a range of Anderson friends and family members, or as complete in its vision of the man and the writer. The result is an unparalleled biography--one that locates the private man, while astutely placing his life and writings in a broader social and political context.

This study examines the relationship between society and literature and shows how the proletarian novel, a literary phenomenon of the 1930s, was a reflection of current interest in revolutionary Marxism. Also discussed are the reasons why literary critics of the following decades dismissed these writings as bizarre and improbable and questioned how the writers could have so badly miscalculated the future. Examples are drawn from socialist works such as Issac Kahn Freedman's "By Bread Alone" and Rebecca Harding Davis' "Life in the Iron Mills", Edward Dahlberg's "Bottom Dogs", Mary Heaton's "Strike!", and Richard Wright's "Native Son". The book discusses why so little radical fiction was written between 1939 and 1954. A chronological bibliography of American radical novels from 1901 to 1954 is also included.