American Academy of Arts and Letters member

Year
1908
Biography

William Vaughn Moody was born on July 8, 1869, in Spenser, Indiana, and his family moved in 1871 to New Albany. He obtained his B.A. (1893) and M.A. (1894) at Harvard University, where he became co-editor of the Harvard Monthly, and joined its English Department in the 1894-95 academic year as assistant to Louis E. Gates. Moody lectured at the University of Chicago in 1895 and stayed there until 1907 when, having risen to Assistant Professor, he left academe to write poetry. By then he had published three verse plays, The Masque of Judgment (1900), The Fire-Bringer (1904), and The Great Divide (1907), one volume of poems (1901), an edition of Milton's works (1899), and a history of English literature (1907). 1908 earned him a D. Litt. at Yale University and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Moody married Harriet C. Brainerd on May 7, 1909, and died in Colorado Springs on Oct. 17, 1910.

  • Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. VII. Ed. Dumas Malone. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934.
  • Milton, John. Complete Poetical Works. Ed. William Vaughn Moody. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899. PR 3550 .F24 1899 Robarts Library
  • Moody, William Vaughn. The Faith Healer: A Play in Four Acts. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909. PS 2427 F35 1909 Robarts Library
  • --. The Fire-bringer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904. PS 2427 F5 1904
  • --. Letters to Harriet. Ed. Percy MacKaye. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935. PS 2428 A47 1935 Robarts Library
  • --. The Masque of Judgment, a Masque-drama in Five Acts and a Prelude. Boston: Small, 1900.
  • --. Poems. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1901. PS 2425 A4 1901
  • --. Poems and Plays. Intro. John M. Manly. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1912. PS 2425 A2 1912 Robarts Library
  • --. Selected Poems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931. 811.5 Moo Se Trinity College
  • --. Some Letters of William Vaughn Moody. Ed. Daniel Gregory Mason. New York: AMS Press, 1969. PS 2428 A4 1969
  • --, and Robert Morss Lovett. A History of English Literature. New York: Scribner, 1904. 2 vols. PR 85 .M6 1904 Robarts Library
  • Stockney, Trumbull. Poems. Ed. George Cabot Lodge, William Vaughn Moody, and John Clierton Lodge. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1905. PS 3537 T525 1905
  • Who Was Who in America. Vol. I: 1897-1942. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1981.