A Story-Teller’s Story (1924) by Sherwood Anderson is a semi-autobiographical work in which the author outlines his journey as a writer and artist in the early twentieth century.

James Joyce’s A Portrait Of The Artist as A Young Man (1916) portrays the development of Stephen Dedalus, an Irish man, from childhood to his leaving a Roman Catholic seminary. Stephen is a writer, as George is, and this novel depicts Stephen’s departure for the larger world.

Ernest Hemingway’s The Torrents of Spring (1926) is a satirical novel which ridicules Anderson’s simple, small-town prose, as well as his focus on common folk.

William Graham Sumner’s Folkways (1907) is a sociological study which argues that all ethics and customs begin with intuition and instinctive responses to hunger, sex, vanity, and fear.

Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology (1915) is a series of stories told from beyond the grave by small-town midwesterners. The stories reveal candid, bitter, and cynical portraits of small town and rural life. Anderson was influenced by Masters.

Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd’s Middletown (1929) is a sociological study of small-town life, tracing the development of a midwestern town of grocers and farmers from 1890 through its growth to a center of industry by 1924.