Anderson, Sherwood

Dark Laughter

New York, NY, USA: Gross & Dunlap Publishers, 1925. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. "...Dudley has left his wife in Chicago and, under an assumed name, he returns to the Indiana town of his childhood to masquerade as a factory hand. One day Aline Grey, the wife of his employer, becomes suddenly conscious of the newcomer and a strange fascination in him. She finds a way of bringing him into her life and experimenting with love. It is as easy for him to go away with her as it was for him to leave his wife..." (from back cover). Ohio-born Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) is renowned for being a strong literary influence on American writing, especially for William Faulkner (1897-1962) and Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). When he was 19, he moved to Chicago and worked writing advertisements. He contributed verse and short stories to a few Chicago publications during this time as well. After 1906 he moved back to Ohio where he worked in business, had a family, and wrote novels on the side. One day, he walked out of the office and staged a mental breakdown for a few days. This would lead to him leaving his wife and children and job in Ohio, and heading back out to Chicago to go full time with literature. Famously known for writing the A.P. English classic Winesburg, Ohio, a collection of short stories alluding to his childhood in Clyde, Ohio, Anderson was one of the first American writers to introduce Freudian Analysis psychology into literature. Dark Laughter was Anderson's only best-seller during his life, but today he is best known and respected for Winesburg, Ohio. Out of print since the early 1960s, since the late twentieth century the novel has been considered a failure by some critics, including Kim Townsend, the author of a 1985 biography of Anderson, Sherwood Anderson. Based on his experiences in New Orleans, Dark Laughter dealt with the new sexual freedom of the 1920s, a theme also explored in his 1923 novel Many Marriages and later works. Anderson had read Ulysses before writing Dark Laughter, with the influence of Irish novelist James Joyce (1882-1941) clearly expressed. Hemingway would even go on to satirize Dark Laughter in his novella Torrents of Spring. This piece of literature is of its time, therefore there is usage of out of date terms that are considered offensive today. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket: presumed first edition and first printing though neither explicated as such at copyright. A most-collectible piece in the American literary canon, in its rarest contemporary form. Book in relatively good-to-near-fine condition with some staining, rubbing and scratching to front, back covers and spine; bumping and some moderate age-toning to text block. Interior relatively fine-to-very fine with expected age-toning and some creasing mostly to edges of page leaves. Dust jacket relatively good-to-near-fine with expected age-toning, rubbing and scratching at front, back cover, spine, and to verso, some small tears mostly to edges with one minor-to-moderate enclosed tear at upper left edge/spine. Good-Near Fine. [Item #7885]

Price: $250.00 save 15% $212.50