The stories in the present volume have been selected from `The Triumph of the Egg`, a rich collection of tales published in 1921, two years after the resounding success of Anderson`s masterpiece, `Winesburg, Ohio`. Embracing a naturalistic interpretationof American life, the stories burnished Anderson`s reputation as a major American writer.
Recounted in a prose style based on colloquial speech and derived in part from the experimental writing of Gertrude Stein, the stories collected here embody some of Anderson`s characteristic themes: small-town environments, distrust of modern industrial society, and the typically American quest for self- and social improvement. Beneath their surface simplicity, the tales explore remarkable psychological depths, capturing the conflict between the individual`s inner world and the outer world of experience, as well as personal epiphanies, undercurrents of erotic longing, and sudden eruptions of passion among seemingly repressed, inarticulate Midwesterners.
William Faulkner proclaimed Anderson `the father of my whole generation of writers`, and Anderson`s stylistic and structural influence is evident in the work not only of Faulkner, but of Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, and, more recently, Raymond Carver. Students, teachers, writers, and all lovers of good fiction are sure to welcome this inexpensive new edition of an American classic.