Spoon River Anthology

Name: Spoon River Anthology
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Edgar Lee Masters

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The dead of a small Illinois town speak for themselves here, each in a short free-verse epitaph delivered from the hillside cemetery above Spoon River. Edgar Lee Masters gives voice to more than two hundred former residents: the banker and the seamstress, the drunkard, the unfaithful wife, the idealist worn down by compromise. What they could not say in life comes out plainly now, and their confessions cross and contradict one another until the whole town stands revealed. First published in 1915, the collection shook American poetry with its plain speech and its refusal to flatter. It remains one of the most quietly devastating portraits of ordinary lives ever written. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.

About the Author

Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) was an American poet, biographer, and lawyer, born in Kansas and raised in Illinois. He practiced law in Chicago, once partnering with Clarence Darrow, before Spoon River Anthology made him famous in 1915. He wrote many later books but never matched…

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Listen to Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters free online. The full audiobook (6 hr 11 min, 246 chapters, read by volunteer narrators) streams free on this page.

Spoon River Anthology (1916) is a public domain work.

#	Chapter	Length
1	Hill, The	2:53
2	Hod Putt	1:09
3	Ollie McGee	1:00
4	Fletcher McGee	1:32
5	Robert Fulton Tanner	1:30
6	Cassius Hueffer	0:56
7	Serepta Mason	0:53
8	Amanda Barker	0:54
9	Constance Hately	0:46
10	Chase Henry	0:50
11	Harry Carey Goodhue	1:20
12	Judge Somers	1:05
13	Kinsey Keene	1:17
14	Benjamin Pantier	1:10
15	Mrs. Benjamin Pantier	1:27
16	Reuben Pantier	1:50
17	Emily Sparks	1:31
18	Trainor, the Druggist	1:32
19	Daisy Fraser	1:13
20	Benjamin Fraser	1:24
21	Minerva Jones	1:39
22	Indignation Jones	1:47
23	Doctor Meyers	1:25
24	Mrs. Meyers	0:50
25	Butch Weldy	1:20
26	Knowlt Hoheimer	1:31
27	Lydia Puckett	0:33
28	Frank Drummer	0:55
29	Hare Drummer	1:53
30	Conrad Siever	1:01
31	Doc Hill	1:08
32	Andy the Night-Watch	0:58
33	Sarah Brown	0:53
34	Percy Bysshe Shelley	0:51
35	Flossie Cabanis	1:16
36	Julia Miller	1:15
37	Johnnie Sayre	1:10
38	Charlie French	0:57
39	Zenas Witt	1:16
40	Theodore the Poet	1:21
41	Town Marshal, The	1:04
42	Jack McGuire	1:15
43	Dorcas Gustine	1:12
44	Nicholas Bindle	0:54
45	Jacob Goodpasture	1:26
46	Harold Arnett	2:02
47	Margaret Fuller Slack	1:27
48	George Trimble	1:02
49	Dr. Siegfried Iseman	1:04
50	Ace Shaw	0:54
51	Lois Spears	1:16
52	Justice Arnett	1:23
53	Willard Fluke	1:45
54	Aner Clute	1:14
55	Lucius Atherton	1:14
56	Homer Clapp	1:26
57	Deacon Taylor	0:34
58	Sam Hookey	0:52
59	Cooney Potter	0:56
60	Fiddler Jones	1:07
61	Nellie Clark	0:54
62	Louise Smith	1:16
63	Herbert Marshall	1:03
64	George Gray	1:05
65	Hon. Henry Bennett	1:05
66	Griffy the Cooper	1:01
67	Sexsmith the Dentist	1:27
68	A. D. Blood	0:47
69	Robert Southey	1:52
70	Dora Williams	1:53
71	Mrs. Williams	1:04
72	William and Emily	0:58
73	Circuit Judge, The	1:03
74	Blind Jack	1:00
75	John Horace Burleson	1:11
76	Nancy Knapp	1:19
77	Barry Holden	1:25
78	State's Attorney Fallas	1:05
79	Wendell P. Bloyd	1:41
80	Francis Turner	0:53
81	Franklin Jones	0:54
82	John M. Church	1:11
83	Russian Sonia	1:37
84	Isa Nutter	1:26
85	Barney Hainsfeather	0:49
86	Petit, the Poet	1:07
87	Pauline Barrett	1:50
88	Mrs. Charles Bliss	1:41
89	Mrs. George Reece	1:03
90	Rev. Lemuel Wiley	0:46
91	Thomas Ross, Jr.	1:09
92	Rev. Abner Peet	0:46
93	Jefferson Howard	1:27
94	Judge Selah Lively	1:25
95	Albert Schirding	1:22
96	Jonas Keene	1:01
97	Eugenia Todd	1:24
98	Yee Bow	1:16
99	Washington McNeely	1:52
100	Paul McNeely	1:25
101	Mary McNeely	1:09
102	Daniel M'Cumber	1:17
103	Georgine Sand Miner	1:38
104	Thomas Rhodes	0:54
105	Ida Chicken	0:58
106	Penniwit, the Artist	1:11
107	Jim Brown	1:36
108	Robert Davidson	1:29
109	Elsa Wertman	1:43
110	Hamilton Greene	0:49
111	Ernest Hyde	1:10
112	Roger Heston	1:00
113	Amos Sibley	0:53
114	Mrs. Sibley	0:46
115	Adam Weirauch	1:27
116	Ezra Bartlett	1:04
117	Amelia Garrick	1:24
118	John Hancock Otis	1:16
119	Anthony Findlay	1:12
120	John Cabanis	1:20
121	Unknown, The	0:52
122	Alexander Throckmorton	0:34
123	Jonathan Swift Somers (Author of the Spooniad)	0:55
124	Widow McFarlane	1:21
125	Carl Hamblin	1:45
126	Editor Whedon	1:29
127	Eugene Carman	1:37
128	Clarence Fawcett	1:05
129	W. Lloyd Garrison Standard	1:58
130	Professor Newcomer	1:02
131	Ralph Rhodes	1:21
132	Mickey M'Grew	1:09
133	Rosie Roberts	0:51
134	Oscar Hummel	1:19
135	Roscoe Purkapile	1:30
136	Mrs. Purkapile	1:08
137	Josiah Tompkins	1:24
138	Mrs. Kessler	1:38
139	Harmon Whitney	2:00
140	Bert Kessler	1:11
141	Lambert Hutchins	1:50
142	Lillian Stewart	1:28
143	Hortense Robbins	0:57
144	Batterton Dobyns	1:03
145	Jacob Godbey	1:20
146	Walter Simmons	1:17
147	Tom Beatty	1:24
148	Roy Butler	1:43
149	Searcy Foote	1:41
150	Edmund Pollard	1:36
151	Thomas Trevelyan	1:38
152	Percival Sharp	1:44
153	Hiram Scates	1:36
154	Peleg Poague	1:09
155	Jeduthan Hawley	1:26
156	Abel Melveny	1:21
157	Oaks Tutt	1:49
158	Elliott Hawkins	1:45
159	Voltaire Johnson	1:08
160	English Thornton	1:33
161	Enoch Dunlap	1:12
162	Ida Frickey	1:33
163	Seth Compton	1:17
164	Felix Schmidt	1:32
165	Schroeder the Fisherman	1:22
166	Richard Bone	1:24
167	Silas Dement	1:14
168	Dillard Sissman	1:36
169	Jonathan Houghton	1:39
170	E. C. Culbertson	1:24
171	Shack Dye	1:22
172	Hildrup Tubbs	1:24
173	Henry Tripp	1:43
174	Granville Calhoun	1:16
175	Henry C. Calhoun	1:31
176	Alfred Moir	1:06
177	Perry Zoll	0:59
178	Dippold the Optician	2:13
179	Magrady Graham	1:32
180	Archibald Higbie	1:29
181	Tom Merritt	0:49
182	Mrs. Merritt	1:09
183	Elmer Karr	0:50
184	Elizabeth Childers	1:38
185	Edith Conant	1:32
186	Charles Webster	1:55
187	Father Malloy	1:33
188	Ami Green	0:48
189	Calvin Campbell	1:09
190	Henry Layton	1:10
191	Harlan Sewall	1:16
192	Ippolit Konovaloff	1:28
193	Henry Phipps	1:51
194	Harry Wilmans	1:27
195	John Wasson	1:34
196	Many Soldiers	1:31
197	Godwin James	1:54
198	Lyman King	1:02
199	Caroline Branson	3:03
200	Anne Rutledge	1:01
201	Hamlet Micure	1:43
202	Mabel Osborne	1:31
203	William H. Herndon	1:44
204	Rebecca Wasson	2:27
205	Rutherford McDowell	1:42
206	Hannah Armstrong	1:46
207	Lucinda Matlock	1:20
208	Davis Matlock	1:13
209	Herman Altman	1:10
210	Jennie M'Grew	1:13
211	Columbus Cheney	0:54
212	Wallace Ferguson	1:33
213	Maria Bateson	0:57
214	Tennessee Claflin Shope	1:07
215	Plymouth Rock Joe	2:11
216	Imanuel Ehrenhardt	1:07
217	Samuel Gardner	1:35
218	Dow Kritt	1:08
219	William Jones	1:19
220	William Goode	0:58
221	J. Milton Miles	1:11
222	Faith Matheny	1:17
223	Scholfield Huxley	1:43
224	Willie Metcalf	1:29
225	Willie Pennington	1:15
226	Village Atheist, The	0:57
227	John Ballard	1:25
228	Julian Scott	0:59
229	Alfonso Churchill	1:02
230	Zilpha Marsh	1:50
231	James Garber	1:51
232	Lydia Humphrey	1:03
233	Le Roy Goldman	1:13
234	Gustav Richter	1:56
235	Arlo Will	1:26
236	Captain Orlando Killion	1:19
237	Jeremy Carlisle	1:29
238	Joseph Dixon	1:30
239	Judson Stoddard	0:54
240	Russell Kincaid	1:29
241	Aaron Hatfield	1:36
242	Isaiah Beethoven	2:04
243	Elijah Browning	2:28
244	Webster Ford	2:16
245	Spooniad, The	17:13
246	Epilogue, The	27:47