Despite the fact that this novel has fallen into obscurity while (for reasons unknown) Winesburg, Ohio, has survived, Poor White is by far the best of his works. It is centered on a young man from Missouri who raises himself from the poor white trash of his early youth to a position of prominence, largely through self-education. This novel contains some of Andersons best character studies of the people and places within the North-Central States, and how, during the post-Civil War period, industrialization changed the people and the society of the Mid-west.

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