First edition cover
Author	Sherwood Anderson
Publisher	Boni & Liveright
Publication date	1925
Publication place	United States
Preceded by	Many Marriages
Followed by	Tar: A Midwest Childhood

Dark Laughter is a 1925 novel by the American author Sherwood Anderson . It dealt with the new sexual freedom of the 1920s, a theme also explored in his 1923 novel Many Marriages and later works. The influence of James Joyce 's Ulysses , which Anderson had read before writing the 1925 novel, is expressed in Dark Laughter . ^[1]

Dark Laughter was Anderson's only best-seller during his life, but today he is better known and respected for Winesburg, Ohio . Out of print since the early 1960s, since the late twentieth century the novel has been considered a failure by some critics, including Kim Townsend, the author of a 1985 biography of Anderson. ^[1]

Ernest Hemingway parodied Dark Laughter in his early short work The Torrents of Spring . Hemingway's novella mocked the pretensions of Anderson's style and characters. Gertrude Stein , his former mentor, objected to the young writer's parody of a writer who had helped him get published, and they had a falling-out.

The novel was included in Life Magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924?1944. ^[2]

References [ edit ]

Further reading [ edit ]

• Rideout, Walter (2006). Sherwood Anderson: A Writer in America. Vol. 1., Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

External links [ edit ]

• Dark Laughter at the Internet Archive

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