American

Edmund Hamilton Sears was born on April 6, 1810, and educated at Union College in Schenectady, New York, 1831-34, and Harvard Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1837. He became a missionary for the American Unitarian Association, a minister for congregations in Wayland and Lancaster, Massachusetts, and editor, from 1859 to 1871, of The Monthly Religious Magazine.

Carl Sandburg's parents were Swedish immigrants who settled in Galesburg, Illinois, where he was born. After a time of manual labour, Sandburg spent four years (without obtaining a degree) at its Lombard College and went on to a career in journalism in Chicago as associate editor of System and editorial writer for the Daily News.

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born on Dec. 22, 1869, at Head Tide in Maine and until 1897 lived at the family home in Gardiner, Maine, aside from several years as a student at Harvard University. For the rest of his life he moved in New York and devoted his life to writing poetry. Robinson earned a small living first as a subway inspector and then in the city's customs office.

Born October 7, 1849, James Whitcomb Riley gave up formal education in Greenfield Academy, Indiana, early to do art and make a living however he could, as by sign-painting, one-man stand-up comedy, and medicine shows at home and on the road.

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound, born on October 30, 1885, in Hailey, Idaho, obtained an M.A. in Romantic literature after attending the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College from 1901 to 1906. His first job came as lecturer in French and Spanish at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1906, but his resignation was requested.

Edgar Poe was born on Jan. 19, 1809, to David Poe Jr. and a widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Hopkins (née Arnold), both actors. Edgar and his sister Rosalie were orphaned in Richmond, Virginia, when their parents died of illness in December 1811. Taken in by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan, Edgar was baptised Edgar Allan Poe two years later.

Marge Piercy was born March 31, 1936, in Detroit, of mother Bert Bunnin Piercy and father Robert Douglas Piercy. She was brought up Jewish by her mother and grandmother. In Early Grrrl, Marge Piercy says, "I started writing poetry regularly and seriously when I was fifteen and my family moved into a house larger by far than we had ever lived in.

A prolific American actor and playwright, born in New York City, who wrote more than 50 plays, Payne was renowned for one thing only, the song "Home Sweet Home" from his opera Clari, performed first at Covent Garden on May 8, 1823. He acted as American consul at Tunis 1842-45 and 1851 until his death a year later.

Dorothy (Rothschild) Parker was born on August 22, 1893, in West End, New Jersey, the daughter of Henry Rothschild and Eliza Marston. She was educated at the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament in New York. Her first job, writing captions for Vogue, led to a career in journalism, criticism, light verse, and short-story, play, and screenplay writing.

Born October 16, 1888, in New York, Eugene O'Neill is the 20th-century's best-known American dramatist. Educated at Princeton, he spent his early years working as a secretary in New York, as a gold-prospector in Honduras, as a seaman on trips to Buenos Aires, South Africa, and Southampton, and as a bit-player in his father's company.