Mid-American Chants

New York: John Lane, 1918.

Price: $500.00

Hardcover. First edition. Boards a trifle soiled else fine in a good only dustwrapper with overall age-toning, several small chips and tears, and the rear panel detached at the joint and flap fold. The author's third book, and his very important first book of poetry. Anderson's poems, long overshadowed by his short stories, evolved directly from the tradition of Walt Whitman. Rare in dustwrapper.

Item #389911

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Item #389911 Mid-American Chants. Sherwood ANDERSON.

Sherwood Anderson
birth name: Sherwood Anderson
born: 9/13/1876
died: 3/8/1941

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Biography

Author who strongly influenced American short-story writing between World Wars I and II. His prose style, based on everyday speech and derived from the experimental writing of Gertrude Stein, was markedly influential on Ernest Hemingway. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literaturemore

Collecting tips:

Anderson's most desirable book is Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life, (1919) which is a rare and valuable book in its easily soiled, printed white jacket. Curiously, we once handled a copy that another dealer had sent out to have cleaned, and the paper restorer who cleaned it managed to wash all the printing off of the clay-coat jacket. Apparently the original printer of the jacket hadn't used a fixative on the ink, and the ink was, in effect, still "wet." Needless to say, it didn't much help the value of the book. Most of Anderson's other books of the period do occasionally show up in jacket, with his first book Windy MacPherson's Son (1916) and Dark Laughter (1925) probably among the more desirable.

Email us to request a printed copy of our catalog of Sherwood Anderson Rare Books and First Editions (or download it via the link as a 1.66 MB pdf file). We also offer a comprehensive Sherwood Anderson Bibliography and Price Guide.more