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Spoon River Anthology: 100th Anniversary Edition (Mass Market)

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Spoon River Anthology: 100th Anniversary Edition By Edgar Lee Masters, John Hollander (Introduction by), Ronald Primeau (Afterword by) Cover Image
By Edgar Lee Masters, John Hollander (Introduction by), Ronald Primeau (Afterword by)
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Staff Reviews


It's been 100 years since Masters published his seminal work. Told through the voices of dead residents of a fictional Illinois town, Masters weaves familial, municipal, and historical tales into an important collection that helps usher American poetry into the modern era. [Mike]

— From Spoon River Anthology

Description


In 1915, Edgar Lee Masters published a book of dramatic monologues written in free verse about a fictional town called Spoon River, based on the Midwestern towns where he grew up. The shocking scandals and secret tragedies of Spoon River were immediately recognized by readers as authentic. Masters raises the dead “sleeping on the hill” in their village cemetery to tell the truth about their lives, and their testimony topples the American myth of the moral superiority of small-town life. Spoon River, as undeniably corrupt and cruel as the big city, is home to murderers, drunkards, crooked bankers, lechers, bitter wives, abusive husbands, failed dreamers, and a few good souls. The freshness of this masterpiece undiminished, Spoon River Anthology remains a landmark of American literature.

With an Introduction by John Hollander and an Afterword by Ronald Primeau

About the Author


As a young man, Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950) rebelled against what he believed to be the hypocrisy of small-town life and went to Chicago, where he practiced law for thirty years. He published eleven books of verses, plays, and essays before beginning his masterpiece, Spoon River Anthology (1915). Later, Masters, Carl Sandburg, and Vachel Lindsay initiated a poetic renaissance in the Midwest, with Chicago as its center.

John Hollander (1929–2013) was an acclaimed American poet and the Sterling Professor emeritus of English at Yale University. His books include Spectral Emanations: New and Selected Poems, Harp Lake, In Time and Place, and Blue Wine and Other Poems. Hollander was also the author of a number of critical works, including Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse.

Ronald Primeau is Professor of English and Director of the MA in Humanities at Central Michigan University. He has published books on Edgar Lee Masters, Herbert W. Martin, the literature of the American highway, and the rhetoric of television. He has edited works on Masters, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and the dynamics of literary influence.
Product Details
ISBN: 9780451530585
ISBN-10: 0451530586
Publisher: Signet
Publication Date: July 3rd, 2007
Pages: 336
Language: English
Series: Signet Classics