Page "Winesburg, Ohio (novel)" Paragraph 12

Gertrude Stein, whose work Anderson was introduced to by either his brother Karl or photographer Alfred Stieglitz between 1912 and 1915, is also said to have played a key role in helping shape the unique style found in the stories.

Through his interaction ( at first satirizing it before ultimately accepting it as essential to his development ) with Stein's Three Lives ( 1909 ) and Tender Buttons ( 1914 ), Anderson found the plain, unambiguous voice that became a staple of his prose.

As indicated by the correspondence the two writers developed after the publication of Winesburg, Ohio, variations on the repetition found in Stein's writing in addition to their mutual appreciation for the sentence as a basic unit of prose were also likely features of her writing that Anderson noticed and drew upon in writing his Winesburg, Ohio.

Literary critic Irving Howe summarized the pair's connection aptly when he wrote, " Stein was the best kind of influence: she did not bend Anderson to her style, she liberated him for his own.