Poor White: Illustrated

by Sherwood Anderson, Michael Segedy (Editor)

Overview

Anderson's Poor White, apart from a wonderful story of a poor young white man's struggle to adopt to the times and deal with the internal war raging inside him, remains an amazing depiction of the struggle of all Americans to adjust to the demands and pressures brought on by the Age of Mechanization.

It is a powerful narrative about an age under assault by modern industrialization and technological innovation. Anyone who wishes to know about this dynamic time in American history, should definitely read this exciting work.

Now some words about this particular edition of Poor White. One central aim of this edition was to provide a more readable text with larger fonts and fewer errors than the original publication. The earlier edition contains many formatting errors, typos, slips of the pen, and misspellings. That being said, many punctuation infelicities, as well as grammatical quirks, which the editor felt uncomfortable in addressing, remain.

This special edition of Poor White also includes various photos and illustrations from the era in which the novel was written. They offer the reader vivid snapshots of a period of transition that brought about changes Anderson saw as a threat to old established ways of life. Certainly his writing captures the era superbly, and thus it was not the editor's intent to provide photos corresponding exactly to the characters, towns, cities, and landscapes Anderson so artfully depicted in his work. The purpose of the photos and illustrations is to provide additional historical background and detail about life lived more than a hundred years ago. For this reason, the editor has carefully chosen photos and illustrations that include, but do not extend beyond, the period in which Poor White was published.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940162589761
Publisher:	NOOK Press
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941), an American novelist and short story writer, is best known for his seminal novel Winesburg, Ohio.

His writing career began rather later in life, when he was in his early thirties. At some point in November 1912 he suffered a mental breakdown and wandered off for four days and found himself in drugstore in Cleveland, nearly thirty miles away. Shortly after, he resigned from his position as president of the Anderson Manufacturing Company in Elyria, Ohio, left his wife and three small children, and decided, to pursue the career of a writer. He later described this episode in his life as "escaping from his materialistic existence." His reckless, boldness garnered praise from a number of young writers who praised his courage.

Anderson's published his first novel, Windy McPherson's Son, in 1916, followed three years later by Marching Men. His real fame came, though with his publication of Winesburg, Ohio in 1919.

His last noteworthy work, Many Marriages (1923), contained themes that would carry over into his later writing. Though the novel had its detractors, though, on the whole, the reviews were favorable. F. Scott Fitzgerald praised Many Marriages as Anderson's finest novel.

Anderson’s uneventful death occurred in Panama while on a cruise to South America. According to the autopsy, he accidentally swallowed a toothpick, thought to have been stuck in a martini olive. The toothpick perforated his colon, causing a fatal case of peritonitis.

His epitaph reads, "Life, Not Death, is the Great Adventure." He was 64 years old when he had his last big adventure.