The landmark American writer profiles the people of a small Midwestern town during the early 1900s, revealing the potential consequences of human misunderstanding. Reprint. Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all timeBefore Raymond Carver, John Cheever, and Richard Ford, there was Sherwood Anderson, who, with Winesburg, Ohio, charted a new direction in American fiction--evoking with lyrical simplicity quiet moments of epiphany in the lives of ordinary men and women. In a bed, elevated so that he can peer out the window, an old writer contemplates the fluttering of his heart and considers, as if viewing a pageant, the inhabitants of a small midwestern town. Their stories are about loneliness and alienation, passion and virginity, wealth and poverty, thrift and profligacy, carelessness and abandon. Nothing quite like it has ever been done in America, wrote H. L. Mencken. It is so vivid, so full of insight, so shiningly life-like and glowing, that the book is lifted into a category all its own.With Commentary by Sherwood Anderson, Rebecca West, and Hart Crane COMMENTARY XI Winesburg, Ohio The Tales and the Persons 3 THE BOOK OF THE GROTESQUE 3(5) HANDS, concerning Wing Biddlebaum 8(8) PAPER PILLS, concerning Doctor Reefy 16(5) MOTHER, concerning Elizabeth Willard 21(10) THE PHILOSOPHER, concerning Doctor Parcival 31(9) NOBODY KNOWS, concerning Louise Trunnion 40(5) GODLINESS, a Tale in Four Parts 45(40) I, concerning Jesse Bentley 45(11) II, also concerning Jesse Bentley 56(13) III Surrender, concerning Louise Bentley 69(10) IV Terror, concerning David Hardy 79(6) A MAN OF IDEAS, concerning Joe Welling 85(10) ADVENTURE, concerning Alice Hindman 95(9) RESPECTABILITY, concerning Wash Williams 104(7) THE THINKER, concerning Seth Richmond 111(16) TANDY, concerning Tandy Hard 127(4) THE STRENGTH OF GOD, concerning the Reverend Curtis Hartman 131(10) THE TEACHER, concerning Kate Swift 141(10) LONELINESS, concerning Enoch Robinson 151(12) AN AWAKENING, concerning Belle Carpenter 163(11) QUEER, concerning Elmer Cowley 174(12) THE UNTOLD LIE, concerning Ray Pearson 186(8) DRINK, concerning Tom Foster 194(10) DEATH, concerning Doctor Reefy and Elizabeth Willard 204(13) SOPHISTICATION, concerning Helen White 217(11) DEPARTURE, concerning George Willard 228