Sherwood Anderson's escape from materialistic existence:

Sherwood Anderson, born in Camden, Ohio on September 13, 1876 was the third child in a family of seven. Ervin Anderson, his father, after losing his job, took to drinking heavily and died in 1895.

Anderson attended school only intermittently, while helping to support the family by working as a newsboy, housepainter, stock handler and stable groom which earned him the name 'Jobby'. At the age of fourteen, Sherwood Anderson left school. He did not have a proper job until the turn of the century when he enlisted in the US Army, but did not see action. Later he worked as quite a successful copywriter in Chicago.

In November 1912 he disappeared for four days after suffering a mental breakdown. He described this as "escaping from his materialistic existence" which was a subject of much praise by other writers for the courage he exhibited. 1916 was to mark his debut in authorship when his first novel Windy McPherson's Son, was published.

Three years later, his second major work, Marching Men, came in to print. However, he was most famous for Winesburg, Ohio, an interrelated set of short stories which came out in 1919, "half individual tales, half long novel form", as he himself described it.

Anderson made his name as a leading naturalistic writer with this masterpiece. He claimed that Hands, the opening story of the series, was the first "real" story he ever wrote. Winesburg, Ohio, and Anderson's other collections of short stories, The Triumphs Of The Egg (1921), Horses And Men (1932), and Death In The Woods (1933), directed the American short story away from the typical neatly plotted tales.

Although he was most famous for short stories he felt the necessity to write novels. In 1920 he published another novel, Poor White, which was fairly successful. He was married four times during his life. In 1923, Anderson published Many Marriages.

In fact many of his other novels and short stories have similar themes. While he was living in New Orleans he associated with other literary legends such as William Faulkner, Carl Sandburg and Edmund Wilson.

His short story A Meeting South is supposed to be about Faulkner and his only best seller Dark Laughter, is supposed to be on his experiences in New Orleans. He published Death in the Woods Puzzled America (a book of essays), in Kit Brandon which was published in 1936.

During his lifetime Anderson wrote two autobiographical works, A Story-Teller's Story, 1924 and semi-fictional TAR: A Midwest Childhood, 1926. His Memoirs, 1942 and Letters, 1953 were published posthumous as the more definitive The Memoirs of Sherwood Anderson, 1969.

In 1921 Anderson received the first Dial Award for his contribution to American literature. Anderson was among the earliest American writers, who responded to Freud's theories, and his best works influenced almost every important American writer.

His themes are comparable to those of T. S. Eliot and other modernist writers. He's a short story writer whose literary voice can be heard in Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, John Steinbeck, and others, although Faulkner and Hemingway eventually turned against him. His prose style was derived from everyday speech.

His books were characterized by a casual development, complexity of motivation, and an interest in psychological process.

He died on March 8, 1941 in Panama of peritonitis after accidentally swallowing a piece of a toothpick embedded in a martini olive at a party, aged 64. His epitaph on the grave reads, "Life Not Death is the Great Adventure" .