The hopes, fears, and regrets of the residents of a small Ohio town in the 1890s are the stuff of this cycle of short stories. Each chapter tells the story of a different citizen of Winesburg. A thread running through the stories is George Willard, a young reporter for the town newspaper, whose wanderings take him all over the town and its surrounding area, and eventually take him away from Winesburg, in order to pursue his dreams and to avoid the life of frustrated ambition that so many of his neighbors have led.