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Social Consciousness in William Maxwell's Writings Based on Lincoln, Illinois

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From: Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
Date: 20050101
Author:Henson, Darold Leigh

In his family history, Ancestors, William Maxwell (1908-2000) characterizes late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century life in Lincoln, Illinois, the setting he uses for many of his short stories and novels: "Men and women alike appeared to accept with equanimity the circumstances (on the whole , commonplace and unchanging) of their lives in a way that no one seems able to do now anywhere. This is how I remember it. I am aware that Sherwood Anderson writing about a similar though smaller place saw it quite differently."1 While Maxwell found complacency and thus a lack of upward social ...

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