Millay, Edna St. Vincent

Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892 - 1950)

Biography

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on February 22, 1892, in Rockland, Maine. Educated in Camden and New York, she graduated from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1917. At first, she worked as a playwright, an actress, and a journalist for Vanity Fair while making a start as a writer by publishing three plays and four remarkable books of poetry, Renascence and Other Poems (1917), A Few Figs from Thistles (1920), Second April (1921), and The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver (1922). She received the Pulitzer Prize for The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923), and she married Eugen Jan Boissevain that year as well. They moved to Austerlitz, New York, in 1926, and she produced twelve more books of poetry before her death on October 19, 1950. These were

  • The Buck in the Snow and Other Poems (1928)
  • Poems Selected for Young People (1929)
  • Fatal Interview: Sonnets (1931)
  • Wine from these Grapes (1934)
  • Vacation Song (1936)
  • Conversation at Midnight (1937)
  • Huntsman, What Quarry? (1939)
  • Collected Lyrics (1939)
  • Make Bright the Arrows: 1940 Notebook (1940)
  • "There are No Islands any More" (1940)
  • Collected Sonnets (1941)
  • The Murder of Lidice (1942)

Posthumously, Norma Millay edited Edna's Mine the Harvest: A Collection of New Poems in 1954. Caedmon Records published in 1961 an audiocassette of Millay reading her poems (TC1123). Karl Yost's A Bibliography of the Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay (New York: Harper, 1937; Z 8574.87 Y65) supplies bibliographical information, supplemented by Judith Nierman's Edna St. Vincent Millay: A Reference Guide (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977; Z 8574 .87 .N53 Robarts Library) gives details of the poet's bibliography. Toby Shafter's Edna St. Vincent Millay: America's Best-loved Poet (New York: J. Messner, 1957; PS 3525 I495 Z78 1957 Scarborough College Library) and Jean Gould's The Poet and her Book (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1969; PS 3525 .I495Z64 Robarts Library) are representative biographies. Her Letters were edited by Allan Ross Macdougall (New York: Harper, 1952; PS 3525 .I495 Z53 Robarts Library).

Given Name
Edna St. Vincent
Family Name
Millay
Birth Date
February 22, 1892
Death Date
October 19, 1950
Nationality
Honours
Literary Period
Literary Movement
Cause of Death