Other editions of book Many Marriages

A Wisconsin man rejects his middle-class life in this controversial 1923 novel of madness and sexual freedom by the celebrated author of Winesburg, Ohio. This is the story of one John Webster, a quiet, prosperous washing machine manufacturer, nearing forty. He lives in Wisconsin with his wife, Mary, and their seventeen-year-old daughter, Jane. They are in many ways the ideal American family . . . until a certain madness takes hold of John; a madness that may in fact be the sudden dawning of sanity. Like so many men and women, John has dreams that he feels compelled to crush in order to function in his quiet, prosperous life. But down within his body, something is beginning to affect him—an irrepressible feeling of not being himself. It comes over him with all the excitement of springtime, and soon enough it will change him, and his life, forever. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

There was a man named Webster who lived in a town of twenty-five thousand people in the state of Wisconsin. He had a wife named Mary and a daughter named Jane and he was himself a fairly prosperous manufacturer of washing machines. He was a rather quiet man inclined to have dreams which he tried to crush out of himself in order that he function as a washing machine manufacturer. And so there was this Webster, drawing near to his fortieth year, and his daughter had just graduated from the town high school. It was early fall and he seemed to be going along and living his life about as usual and then this thing happened to him. Down within his body something began to affect him like an illness. It is a little hard to describe the feeling he had. It was as though something were being born. Had he been a woman he might have suspected he had suddenly become pregnant.

"A time will come when love like a sheet of fire will run through the towns and cities. It will tear walls away. It will destroy ugly houses. It will tear ugly clothes off the bodies of men and women. They will build anew and build beautifully," declares John Webster, a quiet middle-aged businessman who has repressed his dreams in order to function as a washing machine manufacturer. Webster gradually awakens to the inner voices that encourage him to abandon his job and family and live what he believes to be the truth of life. His search for spiritual salvation leads to the embrace of a gospel of sexual emancipation — a complete and absolute acceptance of the flesh, without shame or guilt.Praised by F. Scott Fitzgerald as Sherwood Anderson's finest work, Many Marriages reflects the complacency of the United States in the early 20th century. The country had pursued material comfort and profit until it settled into a process as automatic and mechanical as any of Webster's washing machines. Sex, Anderson proclaimed, could serve as the medium for self-realization and universal communion, returning society to the purity of a preindustrial state. This psychological novel, like works by Sigmund Freud and D. H. Lawrence, excited a scandal upon its 1923 publication, and it remains a landmark in American literature's advance toward sexual openness.

This early work by Sherwood Anderson was originally published in 1923 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Many Marriages' is a novel about a changing society and people's relationships within it. In 1908, Anderson began writing short stories and novels. He moved to Chicago, where he found work in an advertising agency and became friends with other writers in Chicago, including Floyd Dell, Theodore Dreiser, Ben Hecht and Carl Sandburg. Starting in 1914, the now-politicised Anderson began having his work published in 'The Masses', a socialist journal. Anderson's first novel, 'Windy McPherson's Son', was published in 1916. This was followed by the novel 'Marching Men' (1917) and a collection of prose poems, 'Mid-American Chants' (1918). A year later, 'Winesburg, Ohio' (1919), Anderson's best-remembered and best-known work, was published.

"There was a man named Webster lived in a town of twenty-five thousand people in the state of Wisconsin. He had a wife named Mary and a daughter named Jane and he was himself a fairly prosperous manufacturer of washing machines. ... He was however a rather quiet man inclined to have dreams which he tried to crush out of himself in order that he function as a washing machine manufacturer; and no doubt, at odd moments, when he was on a train going some place or perhaps on Sunday afternoons in the summer when he went alone to the deserted office of the factory and sat for several hours looking out through a window and along a railroad track, he gave way to dreams."So begins Many Marriages, Sherwood Anderson's story of a man's rebirth and the consequences for those who surround him. Winesburg, Ohio made Anderson one of American's most critically celebrated authors, seen as a leader of a new, modern way of writing. He was a mentor to as yet unestablished authors such as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. With Many Marriages, Anderson hoped to redefine the American novel in the way Winesburg, Ohio had redefined the short story. Anderson claimed to want to leave behind conventional elements of the novel like plot and character, and instead explore a structure based upon verbal or psychological coherence. Upon its initial publication, Many Marriages seemed destined to bring Anderson the commercial success that had so far eluded him, until it came under attack for immorality and was officially banned in Boston for its depictions of sexuality. Sales plummeted across the northeast as booksellers in New York and other major markets refused to stock it for fear of raids by their own local Comstock brigades. Many Marriages is an essential read for those who are interested in Anderson's development as a writer and for those interested in the history of censorship in America. This edition of Many Marriages by Scruffy City Press, LLC, meets WCAG 2.0 AA standards for accessibility.

"A time will come when love like a sheet of fire will run through the towns and cities. It will tear walls away. It will destroy ugly houses. It will tear ugly clothes off the bodies of men and women. They will build anew and build beautifully," declares John Webster, a quiet middle-aged businessman who has repressed his dreams in order to function as a washing machine manufacturer. Webster gradually awakens to the inner voices that encourage him to abandon his job and family and live what he believes to be the truth of life. His search for spiritual salvation leads to the embrace of a gospel of sexual emancipation — a complete and absolute acceptance of the flesh, without shame or guilt.Praised by F. Scott Fitzgerald as Sherwood Anderson's finest work, Many Marriages reflects the complacency of the United States in the early 20th century. The country had pursued material comfort and profit until it settled into a process as automatic and mechanical as any of Webster's washing machines. Sex, Anderson proclaimed, could serve as the medium for self-realization and universal communion, returning society to the purity of a preindustrial state. This psychological novel, like works by Sigmund Freud and D. H. Lawrence, excited a scandal upon its 1923 publication, and it remains a landmark in American literature's advance toward sexual openness.

There was a man named Webster who lived in a town of twenty-five thousand people in the state of Wisconsin. He had a wife named Mary and a daughter named Jane and he was himself a fairly prosperous manufacturer of washing machines. He was a rather quiet man inclined to have dreams which he tried to crush out of himself in order that he function as a washing machine manufacturer. And so there was this Webster, drawing near to his fortieth year, and his daughter had just graduated from the town high school. It was early fall and he seemed to be going along and living his life about as usual and then this thing happened to him. Down within his body something began to affect him like an illness. It is a little hard to describe the feeling he had. It was as though something were being born. Had he been a woman he might have suspected he had suddenly become pregnant.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.