In the decade following World War I, American literature enjoyed a flourishing of new authors and literary fare. While some of the more sweeping manifestations (Modernism, the Lost Generation) had obvious European roots, homegrown movements were making an indelible mark. Chicago was especially alive with literary activity, and it was here that Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), a small town businessman from Elyria, Ohio, came in 1913 to test and, he hoped, round out his evolving authorial skills.

That his efforts were successful is borne out by the publication, in March 1916, of “Hands,” which as time and critical consensus have affirmed is one of the most innovative stories Anderson ever wrote—and one of the most influential. Anderson followed this success with some 20 additional stories cast in the same matrix, which were published in May 1919 as “Winesburg, Ohio.”

As a representative “Winesburg” story, “Hands” offers clear evidence why the collection was initially perceived as unorthodox and even shocking (Max Eastman accepted it for the avant-garde Masses only after more conventional editors had rejected it). The “plot”—“character profile” would be more accurate—contains little action. The focal point is Wing Biddlebaum, a former schoolmaster and now an alienated, frightened old man whose hands move compulsively and incessantly. However, Anderson’s depiction quickly dismisses such freakish mannerisms and focuses instead on the inner being, gently but candidly revealing the fears, inhibitions and psychological scars. As a schoolmaster Biddlebaum would instinctively touch the boys in his charge in an innocent, nurturing manner until one father accused him of molestation, and beat him unmercifully. He has since lived as a recluse, as do many other misunderstood “Winesburg” characters who, in defense, have retreated inwardly, and are regarded by the “normal” citizenry as aberrants—or “grotesques.”

But to Anderson these characters are deserving of sympathy and compassion. The final image of Biddlebaum in “Hands” shows him picking up spilled breadcrumbs from his kitchen floor and carrying them to his mouth, “one by one with unbelievable rapidity….[T]he kneeling figure looked like a priest engaged in some service of his church. The nervous expressive fingers, flashing in and out of the light, might well have been mistaken for the fingers of the devotee going swiftly through decade after decade of his rosary.”

H.L. Mencken, one of several reviewers who praised the collection, saw this approach to storytelling as refreshingly innovative and was quick to recognize its significance. “It lifts the short story, for long a form hardened by trickery and virtuosity, to a higher and more spacious level,” he wrote, and then contrasted “these penetrating sketches of Anderson’s” to the short stories of then popular writers, whose work, beside Anderson’s, “shrinks to the veriest inconsequences and imbecility.”