25 Facts About Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works.

In 1912, Anderson had a nervous breakdown that led him to abandon his business and family to become a writer.

Sherwood Anderson's most enduring work is the short-story sequence Winesburg, Ohio, which launched his career.

Sherwood Berton Anderson was born on September 13,1876, at 142 S Lafayette Street in Camden, Ohio, a farming town with a population of around 650.

Sherwood Anderson was the third of seven children born to Emma Jane and former Union soldier and harness-maker Irwin McLain Anderson.

In Caledonia Sherwood Anderson's father began drinking excessively, which led to financial difficulties, eventually causing the family to leave the town.

Partly as a result of these misfortunes, young Sherwood Anderson became adept at finding various odd jobs to help his family, earning the nickname "Jobby".

Sherwood Anderson settled in Chicago around late 1896 or the spring or summer of 1897, having worked a few small-town factory jobs along the way.

Sherwood Anderson moved in with him and quickly found a job at a cold-storage plant.

In late 1897, Karl moved away, and Sherwood Anderson relocated to a two-room flat with his sister and two younger brothers newly come from Clyde.

Sherwood Anderson attended several classes regularly including "New Business Arithmetic" earning marks that placed him second in the class.

In September 1899 Sherwood Anderson joined his siblings Karl and Stella in Springfield, Ohio where, at the age of twenty-three he enrolled for his senior year of preparatory school at the Wittenberg Academy, a preparatory school located on the campus of the Wittenberg University.

For two additional years, Anderson worked for Long-Critchfield until an opportunity came along from one of the accounts he managed and so on Labor Day 1906, Sherwood Anderson left Chicago for Cleveland to become president of United Factories Company, a mail-order firm selling various items from surrounding firms.

Soon, letters addressed to Sherwood Anderson began to arrive from customers both desperate and angry.

On Thursday, November 28,1912, Sherwood Anderson came to his office in a slightly nervous state.

Unable to make out what the incoherent Sherwood Anderson was saying, the pharmacist discovered a phone book on his person and called the number of Edwin Baxter, a member of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce.

Critics trying to define Sherwood Anderson's significance have said he was more influential through this younger generation than through his own works.

Sherwood Anderson quickly married the sculptor Tennessee Claflin Mitchell, obtaining a divorce from her in Reno, Nevada in 1924.

In 1924, Sherwood Anderson married Elizabeth Norma Prall, a friend of Faulkner's whom he had met in New York before his divorce from Mitchell.

In 1928 Sherwood Anderson became involved with Eleanor Gladys Copenhaver, whom he married in 1933.

In 1932, Sherwood Anderson dedicated his novel Beyond Desire to Copenhaver.

Sherwood Anderson died on March 8,1941, at the age of 64, taken ill during a cruise to South America.

Sherwood Anderson had been feeling abdominal discomfort for a few days, which was later diagnosed as peritonitis.

Sherwood Anderson's body was returned to the United States, where he was buried at Round Hill Cemetery in Marion, Virginia.

Sherwood Anderson's epitaph reads, "Life, Not Death, Is the Great Adventure".