Poor White

Anderson's Poor White, apart from a wonderful story of a poor young white man's struggle to adopt to the times and deal with the internal war raging inside him, remains an amazing depiction of the struggle of all Americans to adjust to the demands and pressures brought on by the Age of Mechanization. It is a powerful narrative about an age under assault by modern industrialization and technological innovation. Anyone who wishes to know about this dynamic time in American history, should definitely read this exciting work. Now some words about this particular edition of Poor White. One central aim of this edition was to provide a more readable text with larger fonts and fewer errors than the original publication. The earlier edition contains many formatting errors, typos, slips of the pen, and misspellings. That being said, many punctuation infelicities, as well as grammatical quirks, which the editor felt uncomfortable in addressing, remain. This special edition of Poor White also includes various photos and illustrations from the era in which the novel was written. They offer the reader vivid snapshots of a period of transition that brought about changes Anderson saw as a threat to old established ways of life. Certainly his writing captures the era superbly, and thus it was not the editor's intent to provide photos corresponding exactly to the characters, towns, cities, and landscapes Anderson so artfully depicted in his work. The purpose of the photos and illustrations is to provide additional historical background and detail about life lived more than a hundred years ago. For this reason, the editor has carefully chosen photos and illustrations that include, but do not extend beyond, the period in which Poor White was published.