Contemporary American Literature | Page 7

('00): 35; 76 ('09): 800; 88 ('15): 234. Bk. Buyer, 20 ('00): 350,
374. Bookm. 32 ('10-11): 360, 640. Cur. Lit. 29 ('00): 147; 35 ('03):
129 (portrait). Lamp, 27 ('03): 117, 119 (portrait). Mentor, 6 ('18): 2
(portrait). Outlook, 96 ('10): 811.

+Sherwood Anderson+--short-story writer, novelist.
Born at Camden, Ohio, 1876. Of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Father a
journeyman harness-maker. Public school education. At the age of
sixteen or seventeen came to Chicago and worked four or five years as
a laborer. Soldier in the Spanish-American War. Later, in the
advertising business.
In 1921, received the prize of $2,000 offered by The Dial to further the
work of the American author considered to be most promising.
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
1. The autobiographical element in Mr. Anderson's work is marked and
should never be forgotten in judging his work. The conventional
element is easily discoverable as patched on, particularly in the long
books.
2. To realize the qualities that make some critics regard Mr. Anderson
as perhaps our most promising novelist, examples should be noted of
the following qualities which he possesses to a striking degree: (1)
independence of literary traditions and methods; (2) a keen eye for
details; (3) a passionate desire to interpret life; (4) a strong sense of the
value of individual lives of little seeming importance.
3. Are Mr. Anderson's defects due to the limitations of his experience,
or do you notice certain temperamental defects which he is not likely to
outgrow?

4. Mr. Anderson's experiments in form are interesting to study.
Compare the prosiness of his verse with his efforts to use poetic
cadence in The Triumph of the Egg. Does it suggest to you the
possibility of developing a form intermediate between prose and free
verse?
5. Does Mr. Anderson succeed best as novelist or as short-story writer?
Why?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Windy McPherson's Son. 1916. (Novel.) Marching Men. 1917. (Novel.)
Mid-American Chants. 1918. (Poems.) Winesburg, Ohio. 1919. Poor
White. 1920. (Novel.) The Triumph of the Egg. 1921.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS
Bookm. 45 ('17): 302 (portrait), 307. Dial, 72 ('22): 29, 79. Freeman, 2
('21) 1403; 4 ('21): 281. New Repub. 9 ('17): 333; 24 ('20): 330; 28
('21): 383. New Statesman, 8 ('17): 330. Poetry, 12 ('18): 155. See also
Book Review Digest, 1919, 1920, 1921.

+Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews+--(+Mrs. William Shankland
Andrews+)--short-story writer, novelist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
*The Perfect Tribute. 1906. The Militants. 1907. *The Lifted Bandage.
1910. The Counsel Assigned. 1912. The Marshal. 1912. The Three
Things. 1915. Joy in the Morning. 1919. His Soul Goes Marching On.
1922.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS
Bookm. 27 ('08): 155. Nation, 85 ('07): 58. See also Book Review
Digest, 1912, 1915, 1919.

+Mary Antin (Mrs. Amadeus W. Grabau)+--writer.
Born at Polotzk, Russia, 1881. Came to America in 1894. Educated in
American schools. Studied at Teachers' College, Columbia, 1901-2,
and at Barnard College, 1902-4.
Her second book attracted attention for its fresh and sympathetic
treatment of the experiences of immigrants coming to this country.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
From Polotzk to Boston. 1899. *The Promised Land. 1912. They Who
Knock at Our Gates. 1914.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS
Acad. 83 ('12): 637. Am. M. 77 ('14): Mar., p. 64 (portrait). Bookm. 35
('12): 584. J. Educ. 81 ('15): 91. Lond. Times, Oct. 10, 1912: 420.
Outlook, 104 ('13): 473 (portrait).

+Walter Conrad Arensberg+--poet.
Illustrates in his Poems, 1914, and Idols, 1916, conversion from the old
forms of verse to the new. Cf. also Others, 1916.
For studies, cf. Untermeyer; also Dial, 69 ('20): 61 Poetry, 8 ('16): 208.

+Gertrude Franklin Atherton (Mrs. George H. Bowen
Atherton)+--novelist.
Born at San Francisco, 1859. Great-grandniece of Benjamin Franklin.
Educated in private schools. Has lived much abroad.
Mrs. Atherton's work is very uneven, but is interesting as reflecting

different aspects of social and political life in this country.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Doomswoman. 1892. Patience Sparhawk and Her Times. 1897.
*American Wives and English Husbands. 1898. (Revised edition, 1919;
under the title Transplanted.) The Californians. 1898. *Senator North.
1900. The Aristocrats. 1901. *The Conqueror. 1902. The Splendid Idle
Forties. 1902. Rezanov. 1906. *Ancestors. 1907. Perch of the Devil.
1914. California--an Intimate History. 1914. The White Morning. 1918.
Sisters-in-law. 1921. Sleeping Fires. 1922.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS
Cooper. Courtney, W.L. The Feminine Note in Fiction. 1904. Halsey.
(Women.) Harkins. (Women.) Underwood.
Bookm. 12 ('01): 541, 542 (portrait); 30 ('09): 356. Forum, 58 ('17):
585.

+Mary Hunter Austin (Mrs. Stafford W. Austin)+--novelist, dramatist.
Born at Carlinville, Illinois, 1868. At the age of nineteen went to live in
California. B.S., Blackburn University, 1888. Lived on the edge of the
Mohave Desert where she is said to have worked like an Indian woman,
housekeeping and gardening. Studied the desert, its form, its weather,
its lights, its plants. Also studied Indian lore extensively, contributing
the chapter on Aboriginal Literature to the Cambridge History of
American Literature