As is the case with any groundbreaking work of art, there is a tendency to view the early critical responses to Winesburg, Ohio as being shortsighted and prudish, reflecting a world that was both unable to appreciate Anderson's accomplishment and much less sexually sophisticated than our own. There is some truth to this view, but much of it can be traced to the fact that the original reviewers did not, for obvious reasons, have the benefit of studying the book for eighty years, and so their analyses seem to be much simpler than those written today.

Adjusting for the modern critic's advantage of accumulated Anderson studies, the critics who commented on Winesburg when it was first published appear to have been quite astute in what they had to say. Only a few critics took Anderson to task for examining subjects like shame and lust in his...