Dark Laughter

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) was an American businessman and writer of short stories and novels. Born in Ohio, Anderson was self-educated and became, by his early thirties, a successful salesman and business owner. Within a decade, however, Anderson suffered what was described as a nervous breakdown and fled his seemingly picture-perfect life for the city of Chicago, where he had lived for a time in his twenties. In doing so, he left behind a wife and three children, but embarked upon a writing career that would win him acclaim as one of the finest American writers of the early-twentieth century.