Winesburg, Ohio was published 1919, to much critical acclaim. Using the narrative voice of George Willard, and following this character intermittently throughout the book, theauthor skillfully blends a series of apparently unrelated short stories into a unified theme of human aspiration and disappointment. Anderson is scornful of too materialistic a view of existence, and suspicious of ‘absolute truth’. Many of the characters in Winesburg fail in their lives precisely because they cling unthinkingly to one particular principle. The book may purport to concern only the inhabitants of a fictional American town but, in truth, it is the tale of Everyman, a universal story of humanity.