シャーウッド・アンダーソン Sherwood Anderson was born in Camden, Ohio on September 13, 1876. He was the third of seven children. Anderson’s father, Erwin Anderson, had a business which failed. After this, the Anderson family had to move house often, finally settling in Clyde, Ohio. Erwin Anderson began drinking heavily and died in 1895. Sherwood Anderson took a number of jobs to help support his family and he left school at the age of 14.
Anderson moved to Chicago. He worked there until just before 1900, when he signed up for the United States Army. In 1900, Anderson went to Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. He eventually went back to Chicago to take up a writing job.
In 1904, he married Cornelia Lane. Lane came from a rich family in Ohio. They lived in Cleveland, Ohio and then in Elyria, Ohio. Anderson had three children and ran a number of businesses.
In November 1912, Anderson had a mental breakdown. He left his wife and three children and decided to become a creative writer. He moved back to Chicago, but took a job in advertising and publishing. Anderson divorced Cornelia in 1916 and got married to Tennessee Mitchell.
In 1916, Anderson’s first book, Windy McPherson’s Son, was released. In 1919, Anderson’s most famous book, Winesburg, Ohio, was released. Winesburg, Ohio was a collection of short stories about life in a town in Ohio.
In 1922, Anderson divorced Tennessee Mitchell. He got married again in 1924, to Elizabeth Prall. This marriage did not last either. Anderson married again in the late 1920s – this time to Eleanor Copenhaver.
His later books were not considered to be as good as his earlier works.
Anderson died in Panama on March 8, 1941, at the age of 64. He was buried in Marion, Virginia. The writing on his gravestone reads "Life, Not Death, is the Great Adventure."
Anderson is said to have had a big influence on some of the most famous American writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck.