Edgar Lee Masters

From Today in Literature:

On this day in 1914 the first installment of Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology was published in Marion Reedy's weekly magazine, The Mirror...The book was an instant hit and soon became the best-selling book of American poetry to date...

I've been meaning to read Spoon River, off and on, for the past several years. It seems to be one of those quintessential Midwest literary classics from the region's early 20th Century heyday that I really ought to read. Some others in that same category would include Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt and Main Street (both of which I've read, albeit two decades ago) and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (which I bought last year but haven't cracked open yet). My wife Julie is intent on reading some of "the classics" this summer -- I'm not sure yet of her exact definition of that term, but for my own purposes I'll be taking it to mean Babbitt, Winesburg and Spoon River. I might even toss some Hamlin Garland in there, too, though I'm not sure he qualifies as classic any longer.

(Link via Coudal.)