Sherwood Anderson, (born September 13, 1876, Camden, Ohio, U.S.—died March 8, 1941, Colon, Panama), author who strongly influenced American writing between World Wars I and II, particularly the technique of the short story.
Anderson attended school intermittently as a youth in Clyde, Ohio, and worked as a newsboy, house painter, farmhand, and racetrack helper. After a year at Wittenberg Academy, a preparatory school in Springfield, Ohio, he worked as an advertising writer in Chicago until 1906, when he went back to Ohio and for the next six years sought—without success—to prosper as a businessman while writing fiction in his spare time. A paint manufacturer in Elyria, Ohio, he left his office abruptly one day in 1912 and wandered off, turning up four days later in Cleveland, disheveled and mentally distraught. He later said he staged this episode to get away from the business world and devote himself to literature.
Windy McPherson’s Son (1916) and Marching Men (1917). Winesburg, Ohio (1919) Many Marriages (1923), Dark Laughter (1925), Beyond Desire (1932) were some of his wellknown works.
