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  • Published: 15 January 2017
  • ISBN: 9780451530585
  • Imprint: Signet
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $16.99
Categories:

Spoon River Anthology




In 1915, Edgar Lee Masters published a book of poetic monologues told from the point of view of various inhabitants of Spoon River, a town based on his own Midwestern boyhood. The powerful emotions, secrets, tragedies and scandals of Spoon River were immediately recognized by readers as piercingly authentic. As the speakers rise one by one from the dead to tell the truth about his or her life, their testimony topples the myth of the moral superiority of small-town America. Spoon River is, after all, as corrupt and cruel as the big city, full of drunks, thieves, murderers, crooked bankers, hypocrites, abusers, the weak, the bitter, and a few good souls. The freshness of this masterpiece remains undiminished a century later and stands as a landmark of American Literature.

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

  • Published: 15 January 2017
  • ISBN: 9780451530585
  • Imprint: Signet
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $16.99
Categories: