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Notes on Life and Works

Edward Estlin Cummings, poet, playwright, novelist, and painter, was born October 14, 1894, in Cambridge, Mass., and received his A.B. and M.A. from Harvard University in 1915 and 1916. He volunteered as a driver with the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Service in France in 1917 but was arrested on suspicion of treason and interned for some months. After his release, he served U.S. Army as a private in 1918-19. His autobiographical story of his time in the internment camp, The Enormous Room, published in 1922, received widespread praise. His first book of poetry, Tulips & Chimneys (1923), showed an unusual style that was not to change for 40 years. He married Elaine Orr Thayer, March 19, 1924, and they had one child, Nancy. After their divorce in 1925, he married Anne Minnerly Barton, May 1, 1929, but they divorced in 1932. Two years later he entered into a common law marriage with Marion Morehouse. A member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, Cummings received many honours: the Dial award in 1925, Guggenheim fellowships in 1933 and 1951, an Academy of American Poets fellowship in 1950, the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award in 1950, and the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1958. Though as eccentric in prose as in verse, Cummings became Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry, Harvard University, in 1952-53. Exhibitions of his paintings were held at the American British Art Centre in 1949, and Rochester Memorial Gallery in 1959. He died September 3, 1962, in North Conway, New Hampshire, and is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston.

His books of poetry include the following:

• Eight Harvard Poets: E. Estlin Cummings, S. Foster Damon, J.R. Dos Passos, Robert Hillyer, R.S. Mitchell, William A. Norris, Dudley Poore, Cuthbert Wright (New York: L.J. Gomme, 1917). [Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1969] PN 6110 C7 E5 1917A
• Tulips and Chimneys (New York: Thomas Seltzer, October 25, 1923). Firmage A3a, Berg Collection, New York Public Library. (e.e.c. copy with autograph corrections.) Enlarged edition (Golden Eagle Press, 1937). York University Special Collections 1923. See also Tulips & Chimneys: Archetype Edition of the Original MS 1922 (Mount Vernon: Golden Eagle Press, 1923, 1937); and Tulips & Chimneys: The Original 1922 Manuscript with the 34 Additional Poems from &, ed. George James Firmage (New York: Liveright, 1976). PS 3505 U334T8 1976 Robarts Library
• XLI Poems (New York: Dial Press, [April 11,] 1925). Firmage A5, Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Autographed copy. York University Library Special Collections 1915
• & (New York: privately printed, 1925). Firmage A4a, Berg Collection, New York Public Library. No. 112. (Signed by e.e.c. with autograph corrections.)
• is 5 (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926). York University Library PS 3505 U334 I8 1926
• ViVa (Liveright, 1931). York University Special Collections FOL 52
• No Thanks (New York: Golden Eagle Press, 1935). NYPL
• 1/20: poems (London: Roger Roughton, 1936). NYPL
• Collected Poems (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1938)
• 50 Poems (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1940). PS 3505 .U334 F5 St. Michael's College Library
• 1 x 1 (New York: Holt, 1944). PS 3505 U334 O6 Robarts Library
• XAIPE: Seventy-One Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950). PS 3505 U334C5 Robarts Library
• Poems, 1923-1954 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1954). PS 3505 .U334 A15 St. Michael's College Library
• 95 Poems (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Co., 1958). PS 3505 U334N5 St. Michael's College Library
• 100 Selected Poems (New York: Grove Press, 1958). PS 3505 .U334 A17 St. Michael's College Library
• Selected Poems, 1923-1958(London: Faber and Faber, 1960). PS 3505 U334A17 Robarts Library

See also

• 73 Poems (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963). PS 3505 U334S4 Robarts Library
• Complete Poems, 1904-1962, ed. George J. Firmage (New York: Liveright, 1982). PS 3505 U334 A17 1991 Erindale College Library
• Cummings, E. E. The enormous room / E. E. Cummings; a typescript edition with drawings by the author, ed. George James Firmage (New York: Liveright, 1978). D 570 .9 C82 1978 Robarts Library
• Etcetera: The Unpublished Poems of E. E. Cummings, ed. George J. Firmage and Richard S. Kennedy (Liveright, 1984)
• Firmage, George James. E.E. Cummings: A Bibliography (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1960). Z 8204 .63 F5 Robarts Library
• Poems 1905-1962. An authorized typewriter edition of 770 collected, 45 uncollected and 20 unpublished poems, recreated from the poet's manuscripts with bibliographical and textual notes by George James Firmage. London, Marchim Press, 1973. E-10/2735 Fisher Rare Book Library
• Pound/Cummings: the correspondence of Ezra Pound and E.E. Cummings, ed. Barry Ahearn (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996). PS 3531 O82Z4827 Robarts Library
• Selected letters of E. E. Cummings, ed. F. W. Dupee and George Stade (New York, Harcourt, Brace & World [1969]). PS 3505 U334Z53 Robarts Library

Biographical information

Given name: E. E.
Family name: Cummings
Birth date: 1894
Death date: 1962