Spoon River Anthology

In this 1915 collection, Edgar Lee Masters tells the stories of the dead through their own posthumous words. Realistic, often cynical, these epitaphs are spoken from the grave by 244 former citizens of a small Midwestern village. The entire spectrum of human life is represented here—everyone from poet to shopkeeper is given a chance to narrate their life, to tell of their struggles and their thwarted hopes and dreams. With these classic poems, Masters took his revenge on the hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness of small-town America, revealing it in all its injustice, corruption, and cruelty. Edgar Lee Masters is best known for the Spoon River Anthology. As well as verse, he wrote biographies of fellow writers, including Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.