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Home  »  The Little Book of Modern Verse  »  Biographical Notes

Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917.

Biographical Notes

<PARA=”1″>BARKER, ELSA.Born at Leicester, Vermont. Received her early education in that State. After a short period of teaching, she became a newspaper writer and contributed to various periodicals and syndicates. Her journalistic period closed with editorial work upon “Hampton’s Magazine” in 1909 and 1910. Since that date she has published several books in different fields of literature: “The Son of Mary Bethel,” a novel, putting the character of Christ in modern setting; “Stories from the New Testament, for Children”; “Letters of a Living Dead Man,” psychic communications which have attracted much attention; and in poetry, “The Frozen Grail, and Other Poems,” 1910; “The Book of Love,” 1912; and “Songs of a Vagrom Angel,” 1916. Mrs. Barker’s poem, “The Frozen Grail,” addressed to Peary, the explorer, did much, as he has testified, to inspire him, and was upon his person when he finally achieved the North Pole.<PARA=”2″>BRAITHWAITE, WILLIAM STANLEY.Born at Boston, December 6, 1878. Educated in the public schools of that city. He has published two volumes of his own verse, “Lyrics of Life and Love,” 1904, and “The House of Falling Leaves,” 1908, but has given his time chiefly to editorial and critical work. Mr. Braithwaite edited three excellent anthologies: “The Book of Elizabethan Verse,” “The Book of Restoration Verse,” and “The Book of Georgian Verse,” but has turned his entire attention, for several years past, to contemporary American poetry, having founded and edited “The Poetry Journal of Boston,” “The Poetry Review of America,” etc. Mr. Braithwaite summarizes each year for the “Boston Transcript” the poetic output of the American magazines, and publishes, in an “Anthology of Magazine Verse,” what he regards as the best poems printed in our periodicals during the year.<PARA=”3″>BRANCH, ANNA HEMPSTEAD.Born at Hempstead House, New London, Connecticut. Graduated from Smith College in 1897 and from the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City in 1900. While at college she began writing poetry, and the year after her graduation won the first prize awarded by the “Century Magazine” for a poem written by a college graduate. This poem, “The Road ’Twixt Heaven and Hell,” was printed in the “Century Magazine” for December, 1898, and was followed soon after by the publication of Miss Branch’s first volume, “The Heart of the Road,” 1901. She has since published two volumes, “The Shoes that Danced,” 1902, and “Rose of the Wind,” 1910, both marked by imagination and beauty of a high order.<PARA=”4″>BROWN, ALICE.Born at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, December 5, 1857. Educated at Robinson Seminary, Exeter. She is chiefly known as a novelist, having written with great art of the life of New England. Among her best-known volumes are “Meadow Grass,” a collection of short stories; “Tiverton Tales”; “The Mannerings”; “Margaret Warrener”; “Rose MacLeod”; “My Love and I,” etc. In 1915 Miss Brown received a prize of $10,000, given by Winthrop Ames, for the best play submitted to him by an American writer. This drama, “Children of Earth,” was produced the following season at the Booth Theater in New York. In poetry Miss Brown has done but one volume, “The Road to Castaly,” 1896, reprinted with new poems in 1917, but this is so fine in quality as to give her a distinct place among American poets.<PARA=”5″>BURTON, RICHARD.Born at Hartford, Connecticut, March 14, 1859. Received the degree of A.B. from Trinity College in 1883 and of Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1888. He entered journalism and became for a short time managing editor of “The Churchman,” leaving this position to become literary editor of the “Hartford Courant,” where he remained from 1890 to 1897. During this period he was also associate editor of the “Warner Library of the World’s Best Literature.” In 1902 he went to Boston as literary editor of the Lothrop Publishing Company, remaining until 1904. Previous to this time, Dr. Burton had been lecturing widely upon poetry and the drama and spent the succeeding two years chiefly engaged in this work. In 1906 he became the head of the English Department of the University of Minnesota, which position he still holds, although the scholastic year is broken annually by a lecture tour through the East. Dr. Burton has published many volumes of poetry and several upon the drama. Among the former one may cite as most representative: “Dumb in June,” 1895; “Lyrics of Brotherhood,” 1899; “Message and Melody,” 1903; “Rahab: A Poetic Drama,” 1906; “From the Book of Life,” 1909; and “A Midsummer Memory,” an elegy upon the untimely death of Arthur Upson, 1910.<PARA=”6″>BYNNER, WITTER.Born at Brooklyn, New York, August 10, 1881. Graduated at Harvard University in 1902. After his graduation he became assistant editor of “McClure’s Magazine” and literary editor of McClure, Phillips & Company until 1906. Since that period he has devoted himself chiefly to the writing of poetry and poetic drama. His first volume, “An Ode to Harvard, and Other Poems,” was published in 1907. This has been followed by the poetic dramas, “Tiger,” 1913, and “The Little King,” 1917, both of which have had stage presentation, and by “The New World,” 1915, amplified from his Phi Beta Kappa Poem delivered at Harvard in 1911.<PARA=”7″>CARMAN, BLISS.Although so long a resident of America that he belongs among our poets, Bliss Carman was born at Fredericton, New Brunswick, April 15, 1861. He received the degree of A.B. from the University of New Brunswick in 1881 and of A.M. in 1884. He studied also at Harvard and at the University of Edinburgh. Like most poets, Mr. Carman served his period in journalism, being office editor of “The Independent” from 1890 to 1892, and editor of “The Chap-Book” in 1894. He has, however, given almost his sole allegiance to poetry and has published many books, chiefly of nature, interspersed now and then with volumes dealing with myth or mysticism. His first volume was “Low Tide on Grand Pré,” which appeared in 1893, and revealed at the outset his remarkable lyric gift and his sensitive feeling for nature. In collaboration with Richard Hovey he did the well-known “Vagabondia Books,”—”Songs from Vagabondia,” 1894; “More Songs from Vagabondia,” 1896; and “Last Songs from Vagabondia,” 1900,—which introduced a new note into American poetry, and appearing, as they did, in the nineties, formed a wholesome contrast to some of the work then emanating from the “Decadent School” in England. Among the finest of Mr. Carman’s volumes, aside from his work with Richard Hovey, are “Behind the Arras: A Book of the Unseen,” 1895; “Ballads of Lost Haven,” 1897; “By the Aurelian Wall, and Other Elegies,” 1899; “The Green Book of the Bards,” 1898; “Pipes of Pan,” 5 volumes, first number in 1902; “Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics,” 1903. Among his later books may be cited “Echoes from Vagabondia,” 1912, and “April Airs,” 1916.<PARA=”8″>CATHER, WILLA SIBERT.Born at Winchester, Virginia, December 7, 1875. During her childhood the family moved to Nebraska, and in 1895 Miss Cather was graduated from the University of that State. Coming East to engage in newspaper work, she became associated with the staff of the “Pittsburgh Daily Leader,” where she remained from 1897 to 1901. Soon after, she became one of the editors of “McClure’s Magazine,” doing important feature articles until 1912. Miss Cather is now writing fiction, and has published three novels, “Alexander’s Bridge,” “O Pioneers!” and “The Song of the Lark.” In poetry, she has done but one small volume, “April Twilight,” 1903, but several poems from this collection seem likely to make for themselves a permanent place.<PARA=”9″>CAWEIN, MADISON.Born at Louisville, Kentucky, March 23, 1865. Educated in the public schools of that city. He began writing very early and published his first book of verse, “Blooms of the Berry,” 1887, when but twenty-two years of age. From that time until his death, December 7, 1915, he published many volumes of poetry inspired chiefly by the theme of nature. As most of these volumes are out of print, it is unnecessary to list them all, but among the more important may be cited: “Intimations of the Beautiful,” 1894; “Undertones,” 1896; “The Garden of Dreams,” 1896; “Myth and Romance,” 1899; “Weeds by the Wall,” 1901; “Kentucky Poems,” with an Introduction by Edmund Gosse, London, 1902; “A Voice on the Wind,” 1902; “The Vale of Tempe,” 1905; “Complete Poetical Works,” 5 volumes, 1907; “New Poems,” London, 1909; “Poems—A Selection from the Complete Work,” 1911; “The Poet, the Fool, and the Fairies,” 1912; “Minions of the Moon,” 1913; “The Poet and Nature,” 1914; and “The Cup of Comus,” posthumous publication, 1915. Mr. Cawein was distinctly the creator of his own field. From the publication of his first little volume, “Blooms of the Berry,” he had made himself the intimate, almost the mystic. comrade of nature. He had an ecstatic sense of the visible world. Beauty was his religion, and he spent his life learning the ways and moods of nature and declaring them in poetry rich in imagination. He had the naturalist’s eagerness for truth, and one might explore the Kentucky woods and fields with a volume of his poetry as a handbook and find the least regarded flower minutely celebrated. In his most affluent fancy his eye never left the fact, and the accuracy of his observation gives his nature work a background which adds greatly to its value.<PARA=”10″>CHENEY, JOHN VANCE.Born at Groveland, New York, December 29, 1848. Received his early education at Temple Hill Academy in Geneseo, New York. After a short period of teaching and of practicing law, he became the librarian of the Free Public Library of San Francisco and held this position from 1887 to 1894, when he accepted a similar one at the Newberry Library in Chicago, where he remained until 1899. Since that date he has resided in California, where he devotes his time to literary work. His volumes of poetry are: “Thistle Drift,” 1887; “Woodblooms,” 1888; “Out of the Silence,” 1897; “Lyrics,” 1901; “Poems,” 1905; “The Time of Roses,” 1908; “At the Silver Gate,” 1911.<PARA=”11″>COATES, FLORENCE EARLE.Born at Philadelphia and educated at private schools in that city and in France. She studied also at Brussels. Her volumes of poetry in their order are, “Poems,” 1898; “Mine and Thine,” 1904; “Lyrics of Life,” 1909; “The Unconquered Air,” 1912; “Poems,” Collected Edition, in two volumes, 1916.<PARA=”12″>COLTON, ARTHUR.Born at Washington, May 22, 1868. Received the degree of A.B. at Yale University in 1890 and of Ph.D. in 1893. He was also instructor in English at Yale for two years following the taking of his last degree. Since 1906 he has been librarian of the University Club of New York City. Mr. Colton has published several volumes of essays and but one volume of poetry: “Harps Hung up in Babylon,” 1907.<PARA=”13″>CONE, HELEN GRAY.Born in New York City, March 8, 1859. Graduated at the Normal College of New York City in 1876. She has been Professor of English Literature at her Alma Mater, now called Hunter College, since 1899. Her volumes of verse are: “Oberon and Puck,” 1885; “The Ride to the Lady,” 1893; “Soldiers of the Light,” 1911; “A Chant of Love for England, and Other Poems,” 1915.<PARA=”14″>DALY, THOMAS AUGUSTINE.Born at Philadelphia, May 28, 1871, and educated at Fordham University. He was for some time reporter and editorial writer on the “Philadelphia Record,” and is now the general manager of the “Catholic Standard and Times.” Mr. Daly has put the Italian immigrant into poetry and written several volumes of delightful verse in this field. He has not pursued this exclusively, however, but has done some excellent work in other themes. His volumes are: “Canzoni,” 1906; “Carmina,” 1909; “Madrigali,” 1912; and “Songs of Wedded Love,” 1916.<PARA=”15″>DARGAN, OLIVE TILFORD.Born in Grayson County, Kentucky, and educated at the University of Nashville and at Radcliffe College. She became a teacher and was connected with various schools in Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas until her marriage. Mrs. Dargan’s first work was in poetic drama in which she revealed gifts of a high order. Her dramatic volumes are: “Semiramis, and Other Plays,” 1904; “Lords and Lovers,” 1906; and “The Mortal Gods,” 1912. Mrs. Dargan has also written a collection of lyric verse called “Path Flower,” 1914, and a sonnet sequence, “The Cycle’s Rim,” 1916.<PARA=”16″>DASKAM, JOSEPHINE DODGE (MRS. SELDEN BACON).Born at Stamford, Connecticut, February 17, 1876. Graduated at Smith College in 1898. She is chiefly known as a novelist and writer of short stories in which field she has had conspicuous success. Among her volumes of fiction are: “The Madness of Philip”; “Whom the Gods Destroyed”; “Margherita’s Soul”; and “Open Market.” Miss Daskam has done but one volume of verse: “Poems,” 1903.<PARA=”17″>DAVIS, FANNIE STEARNS (MRS. AUGUSTUS MCKINSTREY GIFFORD).Born at Cleveland, Ohio, March 6, 1884. Educated at Smith College, from which she graduated in 1904. She is the author of two volumes of poetry: “Myself and I,” 1913, and “Crack O’ Dawn,” 1915, both marked by sensitive poetic feeling and delicate artistry.<PARA=”18″>FIRKINS, CHESTER.Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 30, 1882. Received his education in the public schools of that city and at the University of Minnesota. He was an active journalist, having been associated with the press of Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, and of Chicago before coming to New York, where he served on the staff of the “New York American” until his death, March 1, 1915. He was a contributor of stories and verse to well-known magazines, but his volume of poems was brought out posthumously in 1916.<PARA=”19″>FRENCH, NORA MAY.Born in East Aurora, New York, and died at Carmel, California, on November 14, 1907, when twenty-six years of age. A small volume of her poems, edited by her friend, George Sterling, was brought out after her death.<PARA=”20″>GARRISON, THEODOSIA (MRS. FREDERICK J. FAULKS).Born at Newark, New Jersey. Educated at private schools in New York. She was for several years a constant contributor of poetry to the magazines, though she has written less of late. Her two published volumes of verse are: “Joy O’ Life,” 1908, and “The Earth Cry,” 1910.<PARA=”21″>GREENE, SARAH PRATT MCLEAN.Born at Simsbury, Connecticut, July 3, 1856 and educated at McLean Academy and at Mount Holyoke College. She is chiefly known as the author of “Cape Cod Folks,” “Vesty of the Basins,” and other volumes dealing with the life of the Cape Cod fishermen, but Mrs. Greene has written one poem destined to hold a permanent place not only in our literature, but in the larger body of enduring poetry. This is “De Massa ob de Sheepfol,” contained in this collection.<PARA=”22″>GUINEY, LOUISE IMOGEN.Born at Boston, January 7, 1861. Educated in the private schools of Boston and the Sacred Heart Convent in Providence, Rhode Island. Her father, Patrick Guiney, was a brigadier-general in our Civil War, and having been born during the period of the conflict and her early youth having been spent almost before the echo of the guns had died, Miss Guiney’s work was much influenced by this background of association. The symbolism of her poetry is frequently drawn from battle or from knight-errantry, as in “The Wild Ride,” “The Kings,” “The Vigil-at-Arms,” “The Knight Errant,” “Memorial Day, etc. Valor, transmuted to a spiritual quality, may, indeed, be said to be the keynote of Miss Guiney’s work. Add to this a mystical element, best illustrated in her poem, “Beati Mortui,” a Celtic note, shown so exquisitely in her “Irish Peasant Song,” and one has the more obvious characteristics of poetry that, whatever its theme, is always distinguished and individual. Miss Guiney has a crisp economy of phrase, a pungency and tang, that invest her style with an unusual degree of personality. Her volumes in their order have been: “The White Sail,” 1887; “A Roadside Harp,” 1893; “Nine Sonnets Written at Oxford,” 1895; “The Martyr’s Idyl,” 1899; and “Happy Ending,” her collected poems, 1909.<PARA=”23″>HAGEDORN, HERMANN.Born July 18, 1882. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Berlin and served as instructor in English at Harvard from 1909 to 1911. Mr. Hagedorn is the author of “The Silver Blade: A Play in Verse,” 1907; “The Woman of Corinth,” 1908; “A Troop of the Guard,” 1909; “Poems and Ballads,” 1911; and “The Great Maze and the Heart of Youth: A Poem and a Play,” 1916.<PARA=”24″>HELBURN, THERESA.Born in New York City. Educated at Bryn Mawr College and at Radcliffe. She has not yet published a collection of poetry, but has contributed to the leading magazines.<PARA=”25″>HOVEY, RICHARD.Born at Normal, Illinois, May 4, 1864, died February 24, 1900. He received his early education at Dartmouth College, which he afterward celebrated in several of his best-known poems. In collaboration with Bliss Carman he did the well known “Vagabondia Books,”—“Songs from Vagabondia,” 1894; “More Songs from Vagabondia,” 1896; “Last Songs from Vagabondia,” 1900,—books whose freshness and charm immediately won them a place in public favor that time has not lessened. Aside from his work with Mr. Carman and his lyric collection, “Along the Trail,” 1898, Hovey had done a remarkable group of poetic dramas built upon the Arthurian legend and issued separately under the titles, “The Quest of Merlin: Masque,” 1898; “The Marriage of Guenevere: A Tragedy,” 1898; “The Birth of Galahad: A Romantic Drama,” 1898; “Taliesin: A Masque,” 1899. These were but part of the dramas projected in the cycle and a fragment of the next to be issued, “The Holy Grail,” was published, with explanatory notes of the whole series, in 1907. The dramas stand for a dramatic achievement of a high order, and contain poetry of great beauty, reaching at times, in the lyric masque of “Taliesin,” an almost consummate expression. Richard Hovey was, indeed, both in lyric and dramatic work, a poet of rare endowment and his early death was a distinct loss to American letters.<PARA=”26″>JOHNS, ORRICK.Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1887. Educated at the University of Missouri and Washington University in St. Louis. He was associated for a short time with “Reedy’s Mirror.” In 1912 he received the first prize, of five hundred dollars, for a poem entitled “Second Avenue,” contributed to the prize contest of “The Lyric Year,” and afterwards published in that volume.<PARA=”27″>JONES, THOMAS S., JR.Born at Boonville, New York, November 6, 1882. Graduated at Cornell University in 1904. He was on the dramatic staff of the “New York Times,” from 1904 to 1907, and associate editor of “The Pathfinder”, in 1911. His published volumes are: “Path of Dreams”, 1904; “From Quiet Valleys”, 1907; “Interludes”, 1908; “Ave Atque Vale” (In Memoriam Arthur Upson), 1909; “The Voice in the Silence”, with a Foreword by James Lane Allen, 1911; and “The Rose-Jar”, originally published in 1906, but taken over in 1915 by Thomas B. Mosher and made the initial volume of “Lyra Americana,” his first series of American poetry.<PARA=”28″>KILMER, JOYCE.Born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, December 6, 1886, and graduated at Columbia University in 1908. After a short period of teaching he became associated with Funk and Wagnalls Company, where he remained from 1909 to 1912, when he assumed the position of literary editor of “The Churchman.” In 1913 Mr. Kilmer became a member of the staff of the “New York Times,” a position which he still occupies. His volumes of poetry are: “A Summer of Love”, 1911, and “Trees, and Other Poems”, 1914.<PARA=”29″>KNOWLES, FREDERICK LAWRENCE.Born at Lawrence, Massachusetts, September 8, 1869, and graduated at Wesleyan University in 1894 and Harvard University in 1896. He was connected for a short time with the editorial department of Houghton Mifflin Company and with the staff of L. C. Page and Company as literary adviser. In 1900 he accepted a similar position with Dana Estes and Company where he remained until his death in September, 1905. Mr. Knowles was the author of two volumes of verse: “On Life’s Stairway”, 1900, and “Love Triumphant”, 1904. In addition to his own work in poetry he was the editor of several excellent anthologies, such as “The Golden Treasury of American Lyrics”, 1897; “A Treasury of Humorous Poetry”, 1902; and “A Year-Book of Famous Lyrics.” Mr. Knowles was a poet of fine gifts and his early death was a loss to American poetry.<PARA=”30″>LEDOUX, LOUIS.Born at New York City, June 6, 1880. Educated at Columbia University, where he graduated in 1902. He is the author of “Songs from the Silent Land”, 1905; “The Soul’s Progress,” 1907; “Yzdra: A Poetic Drama,” 1909; “The Shadow of Etna,” 1914; “The Story of Eleusis: A Lyrical Drama,” 1916.<PARA=”31″>LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD.Born at Liverpool, England, January 20, 1866. He was already a well-known poet, novelist, and critic when he took up his residence in the United States. In each of these fields Mr. Le Gallienne has achieved conspicuous success and it would be difficult to say what phase of his literary work should take precedence of the others. Among the best known of his prose works are: “The Quest of the Golden Girl,” “Book Bills of Narcissus,” “An Old Country House,” “Little Dinners with the Sphinx,” etc. In criticism he has done particularly fine work in his study of George Meredith and in his volume, “Attitudes and Avowals.” In poetry, with which we are chiefly concerned, he has given us several volumes distinguished by that delicacy and sensitive feeling for beauty which characterize all of his work. These are: “English Poems”, 1892; “Stevenson, and Other Poems”, 1895; “New Poems”, 1909; “The Lonely Dancer”, 1913. In addition to these volumes, Mr. Le Gallienne has made an admirable paraphrase of the “Rubáiyátt” of Omar Khayyám and of a group of odes from the “Divan” of Hafiz.<PARA=”32″>LINDSAY, VACHEL.Born November 10, 1879. Educated at Hiram College, Ohio. He took up the study of art and studied at the Art Institute, Chicago, 1900–03 and at the New York School of Art, 1904–05. For a time after his technical study, he lectured upon art in its practical relation to the community, and returning to his home in Springfield, Illinois, issued what one might term his manifesto in the shape of “The Village Magazine,” divided about equally between prose articles, pertaining to beautifying his native city, and poems, illustrated by his own drawings. Soon after this, Mr. Lindsay, taking as scrip for the journey, “Rhymes to be Traded for Bread,” made a pilgrimage on foot through several Western States going as far afield as New Mexico. The story of this journey is given in his volume, “Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty.” Mr. Lindsay first attracted attention in poetry by “General William Booth Enters into Heaven,” a poem which became the title of his first volume, in 1913. His second volume was “The Congo”, published in 1914. He is attempting to restore to poetry its early appeal as a spoken art, and his later work differs greatly from the selections contained in this anthology.<PARA=”33″>LODGE, GEORGE CABOT.Born at Boston, October 12, 1873. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Paris. He did his first work in poetry at Harvard in the stimulating companionship of a little group of poets including Trumbull Stickney, William Vaughn Moody, and Philip Henry Savage, all of whom, by a strange fatality, died within a few years after leaving the University. Mr. Lodge was a poet whose gift followed classical lines, but was none the less individual and sincere. His complete work in lyric and dramatic poetry has been gathered into two volumes: “Poems and Dramas”, 1911. He died at Boston in 1909.<PARA=”34″>LOWELL, AMY.Born at Boston, February 9, 1874. Educated at private schools. She has been prominently identified with the “Imagist” movement in poetry and with the technical use of vers libre. These movements, however, were not yet influencing poetry when “The Little Book of Modern Verse” was edited, and Miss Lowell is, therefore, represented by a lyric in her earlier and less characteristic manner. Her volumes in their order are: “A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass”, 1912; “Sword Blades and Poppy Seed”, 1914; “Men, Women, and Ghosts”, 1916. Miss Lowell is also the editor of “Some Imagist Poets”, 1915; “Some Imagist Poets”, 1916, and “Some Imagist Poets”, 1917, all of which contain a group of her own poems.<PARA=”35″>MACKAYE, PERCY.Born at New York City, March 16, 1875. Educated at Harvard University and the University of Leipzig. He has written many poetic dramas and several volumes of lyric verse. Among the best known of his dramas are: “The Canterbury Pilgrims”, 1903; “Fenris, the Wolf”, 1905; “Jeanne d’Arc”, 1906; “Sappho and Phaon”, 1907; and “Caliban: A Masque”, 1916. He is also the author of several prose dramas which have been successfully produced. In non-dramatic poetry his most representative volumes are: “Poems”, 1909; “Uriel, and Other Poems”, 1912; “The Sistine Eve, and Other Poems”, “The Present Hour”, 1915.<PARA=”36″>MARKHAM, EDWIN.Born at Oregon City, Oregon, April 23, 1852. Removed at an early age to California, where his childhood was spent upon a ranch in herding sheep and riding the ranges after the cattle. Later, when the cattle ranges turned into farms, he worked in the fields and in autumn joined the threshers on their route from farm to farm. During his boyhood he attended school but three months in the year, but later studied at San José Normal School and the University of California. His first books were earned, when a lad on the ranch, by ploughing a twenty-acre lot at a dollar an acre and investing the entire sum in the works of the great poets. Thereafter, when he rode the ranges, he balanced his saddle bags with Keats and Shelley. It was, indeed, largely due to the democracy of Shelley, coupled with his own early experiences, that his genius took the social bent which distinguishes it. After leaving the University, Mr. Markham became a teacher in California and was principal and superintendent of several schools until 1899, when he sprang suddenly into fame by the publication in the “San Francisco Examiner” of his poem “The Man With the Hoe.” This poem, crystallizing as it did the spirit of the time, and emphasizing one’s obligation to Society, became the impulse of the whole social movement in poetry, a movement which largely prevailed during the early years of the twentieth century. After the great success of “The Man With the Hoe,” Mr. Markham removed from California to New York City, where he has since been engaged in literary work. His volumes of poetry in their order are: “The Man With the Hoe, and Other Poems”, 1899; “Lincoln, and Other Poems”, 1901; “The Shoes of Happiness”, 1915.<PARA=”37″>MIFFLIN, LLOYD.Born at Columbia, Pennsylvania, September 15, 1846. He was educated at Washington Classical Institute and studied art abroad. His chief work in poetry has been in the sonnet form, of which he has exceptional mastery. His volumes are: “The Hills”, 1896; “At the Gates of Song”, 1897; “The Slopes of Helicon”, 1898; “The Fields of Dawn and Later Sonnets”, 1900; “Castilian Days”, 1903; “Collected Sonnets”, 1905; “My Lady of Dream”, 1906; and “Toward the Uplands”, 1908.<PARA=”38″>MILLAY, EDNA ST. VINCENT.Born at Camden, Maine. Educated at Vassar College. Before entering college, however, when she was but nineteen years of age, she wrote the poem “Renascence,” which was entered in the prize contest of “The Lyric Year.” The poem shows remarkable imagination and a poetic gift of a high order. Miss Millay has not yet issued a volume of verse.<PARA=”39″>MOODY, WILLIAM VAUGHN.Born at Spencer, Indiana, July 8, 1869. Educated at Riverside Academy, New York, and at Harvard. In 1895 be became Assistant Professor of English in the University of Chicago, where he remained until 1903. His period of teaching, however, was relieved by several trips abroad, on one of which he visited Greece and re-read the entire body of Greek tragedy with the background of the scenes which produced it. The Greek influence, dominant in his work, reaches its finest expression in “The Fire-Bringer,” a poetic drama of great beauty and philosophical depth. This drama is one of a trilogy of which it is the first member, the second being “The Masque of Judgment,” and the third, “The Death of Eve.” The last was in process of writing at Mr. Moody’s death and only fragments of it have been published. This trilogy, profound in its spiritual meaning and artistic in execution, would alone be sufficient to place Moody among the major poets had he not left us a body of lyric poetry of equal distinction. Moody first attracted wide attention by “An Ode in Time of Hesitation,” written in relation to the annexation of the Philippine Islands by the United States. In addition to this he has left us several poems notable for their social vision, particularly “Gloucester Moors.” In the songs of “The Fire-Bringer,” however, we have his truest lyric offering, and in “The Daguerreotype,” that poignant and beautiful poem to his mother. Moody died at Colorado Springs on October 17, 1910. His work has been collected into two volumes, “The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody”, 1912.<PARA=”40″>NEIHARDT, JOHN G.Born at Sharpsburg, Illinois, January 8, 1881. Removed in his early boyhood to Bancroft, Nebraska, his present home. He has made a special study of the pioneer life of the West and has also lived for a time among the Omaha Indians to study them. His work has virility and imagination and reflects the life which inspired it. His books of verse are: “A Bundle of Myrrh”, 1908; “Man-Song”, 1909; “The Stranger at the Gate”, 1912; “The Song of Hugh Glass”, 1915; and “The Quest”, 1916.<PARA=”41″>NORTON, GRACE FALLOW.Born at Northfield, Minnesota, October 29, 1876. She is the author of “The Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph’s”, 1912; “The Sister of the Wind”, 1914; “Roads”, 1915; “What is Your Legion?” 1916.<PARA=”42″>O’HARA, JOHN MYERS.Author of “Songs of the Open”, 1909; “The Poems of Sappho: An Interpretative Rendition into English”, 1910; “Pagan Sonnets”, 1910; “The Ebon Muse”, 1914; “Manhattan”, 1915. Mr. O’Hara’s rendition of “Sappho” is one of the finest in English literature.<PARA=”43″>O SHEEL, SHAEMAS.Born at New York City, September 19, 1886. Educated at Columbia University. His volumes are: “The Blossomy Bough”, 1911, and “The Light Feet of Goats”, 1915.<PARA=”44″>PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON (MRS. LIONEL MARKS).Born at New York City. Educated at the Girls’ Latin School of Boston and at Radcliffe College. She was instructor of English at Wellesley College from 1901 to 1903. Her volumes of lyric and dramatic poetry in their order are: “The Wayfarers”, 1898; “Fortune and Men’s Eyes”, 1900; “Marlowe: A Drama”, 1901; “The Singing Leaves”, 1903; “The Wings”, 1905; “The Piper”, a drama, awarded the Stratford-on-Avon Prize, 1910; “The Singing Man”, 1911; “The Wolf of Gubbio: A Drama”, 1913; “The Harvest Moon”, 1916. Miss Peabody, as her volumes show, is a poet of varied gifts and her work is always distinguished by charm of personality and by insight.<PARA=”45″>REESE, LIZETTE WOODWORTH.Born in Baltimore, Maryland, January 9, 1856. Educated in the schools of that city. She has been for many years a teacher of English in West High School of Baltimore. Her volumes of verse are: “A Branch of May”, 1887; “A Handful of Lavender”, 1891; “A Quiet Road”, 1896; “A Wayside Lute”, 1909. Miss Reese has a lyric gift unique in its strict Saxon simplicity. Her work has an early, Old-World flavor, a quaintness, a magic of phrase that renders it wholly individual.<PARA=”46″>RICE, CALE YOUNG.Born at Dixon, Kentucky, December 7, 1872. Graduated from Cumberland University in 1893, and from Harvard University in 1895, where he remained to take the degree of A.M. in 1896. He is the author of many fine poetic dramas, some of which have had successful stage presentation, and of several volumes of lyric poetry. In poetic drama his best-known volumes are: “Charles di Tocca”, 1903; “David”, 1904; “Yolanda of Cyprus”, 1906; “A Night in Avignon”, 1907; “The Immortal Lure”, 1911; “Porzia”, 1913. In lyric poetry he has published the following collections: “From Dusk to Dusk”, 1898; “Song Surf”, 1900; “Nirvana Days”, 1908; “Many Gods”, 1910; “Far Quests”, 1912; “At the World’s Heart”, 1914; “Earth and New Earth”, 1916; “Trails Sunward”, 1917. With the exception of the last two books, Mr. Rice’s plays and poems were collected into two volumes in 1915.<PARA=”47″>RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB.Born in Greenfield, Indiana, in June, 1853, and died at Indianapolis, July, 1916. He occupied a field unique in American literature and probably no poet came as near to the heart of the people. Popularly known as “The Hoosier Poet,” because his verse was largely written in the dialect of the common people of his native State of Indiana, he was yet a poet of the truest gifts, and many of his dialect poems bid fair to become classic. Mr. Riley did not confine himself, however, to the use of dialect, but wrote some exquisite poetry in other fields. Unlike many poets, he lived to see himself not only the most beloved and honored citizen of his native State, which annually celebrates “Riley Day,” but the most widely known and beloved poet of his period in America. Mr. Riley was so voluminous a writer that we have scarcely space to list all of his titles, but among the favorite volumes are: “The Old Swimmin’ Hole, and ’Leven More Poems”, 1883; “Afterwhiles”, 1887; “Pipes o’ Pan at Zekesbury”, 1888; “Rhymes of Childhood”, 1890; “Green Fields and Running Brooks”, 1892; “Armazindy”, 1894; “Love Lyrics”, 1899; “Home Folks”, 1900; “Farm Rhymes”, 1901; “An Old Sweetheart of Mine”, 1902; “Out to Old Aunt Mary’s”, 1904; “Raggedy Man”, 1907; “The Little Orphant Annie Book”, 1908; “When the Frost is on the Punkin, and Other Poems” Frost is on the Punkin, and Other Poems,” 1911; “Knee Deep in June, and Other Poems”, 1912; and the Biographical Edition of the complete works, 1913.<PARA=”48″>ROBERTS, CHARLES G. D.Born in Douglas, New Brunswick, January 10, 1860. Educated at the University of New Brunswick. After a period of teaching, he turned to journalism and was editor for a time of “The Week,” Toronto, and associate editor of “The Illustrated American.” Mr. Roberts has been a voluminous writer as novelist, naturalist, and poet. His volumes of verse are: “Orion, and Other Poems”, 1880; “In Divers Tones”, 1887; “Songs of the Common Day”, 1893; “The Book of the Native”, 1896; “New York Nocturnes”, 1898; “Poems”, 1901; “The Book of the Rose”, 1903; “Collected Poems”, 1907.<PARA=”49″>ROBINSON, EDWIN ARLINGTON.Born at Head Tide, Maine, December 22, 1869. Educated at Harvard University. He is the author of “Children of the Night”, 1897; “Captain Craig”, 1902; “The Town Down the River”, 1910; “The Man against the Sky”, 1916; “Merlin”, 1917; and of two prose dramas, “Van Zorn” and “The Porcupine.” Mr. Robinson is a psychological poet of great subtlety. His poems are usually studies of types and he has given us a remarkable series of portraits.<PARA=”50″>ROGERS, ROBERT CAMERON.Born at Buffalo, New York, January 7, 1862. Died at Santa Barbara, California, while still a young man. He was chiefly known for his poem, “The Rosary,” contained in this collection.<PARA=”51″>ROSENFELD, MORRIS.A Yiddish poet who came to America in his early youth. He has been connected editorially with the Jewish “Forward” and other papers. He is chiefly known for his “Songs of the Ghetto.”<PARA=”52″>SANTAYANA, GEORGE E.Born in Madrid, Spain, December 16, 1863. He was for several years Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, and has written important works in this field, particularly “The Sense of Beauty”, 1896, and “Interpretations of Poetry and Religion”, 1900. His work in poetry has been largely in the sonnet form, of which he has a classic mastery. His volumes of verse are: “Sonnets, and Other Poems”, 1894; “Lucifer”, 1899; “The Hermit of Carmel”, 1901; “Collected Sonnets”, 1910.<PARA=”53″>SCHAUFFLER, ROBERT HAVEN.Born at Brün, Austria, though of American parentage, on April 8, 1879. He studied at Northwestern University, but took his degree of B.A. from Princeton in 1902, and afterwards spent a year in study at the University of Berlin. Mr. Schauffler was a musician before he took up literature and was a pupil of many famous masters of the ’cello. He has written upon musical subjects, notably in his volume, “The Musical Amateur.” He has also written several books of travel, such as “Romantic Germany” and “Romantic America.” He attracted wide attention by his poem upon immigration, “The Scum o’ the Earth,” which is the title poem of his volume of verse, 1912.<PARA=”54″>SCOLLARD, CLINTON.Born at Clinton, New York, September 18, 1860. Graduated at Hamilton College in 1881. He afterwards studied at Harvard University and at Cambridge, England. He was Professor of English Literature at Hamilton College, 1888–96. Mr. Scollard has been a voluminous writer, and we must content ourselves with listing his more important books. His first volume was “Pictures in Song”, 1884, followed by: “With Reed and Lyre”, 1888; “Old and New World Lyrics”, 1888; “Songs of Sunrise Lands”, 1892; “The Hills of Song”, 1895; “The Lutes of Morn”, 1901; “Lyrics of the Dawn”, 1902; “The Lyric Bough”, 1904; “Chords of the Zither”, 1910; “Sprays of Shamrock”, 1914; “Poems”, a selection from his complete work, 1914; “Italy in Arms”, 1915; “The Vale of Shadows”, 1915; “Ballads, Patriotic and Romantic”, 1916.<PARA=”55″>SHERMAN, FRANK DEMPSTER.Born at Peekskill, New York, May 6, 1860. Died September 19, 1916. He took the degree of Ph.B. from Columbia University in 1884, and was Professor of Graphics in Columbia School of Architecture from 1904 until his death. He was the author of “Madrigals and Catches”, 1887; “Lyrics for a Lute”, 1890; “Little Folk Lyrics”, 1892; “Lyrics of Joy”, 1904; and “A Southern Flight” (with Clinton Scollard), 1906.<PARA=”56″>STERLING, GEORGE.Born at Sag Harbor, New York, December 1, 1869. Educated at private schools and at St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Maryland. He is the author of “The Testimony of the Suns”, 1903; “A Wine of Wizardry”, 1908; “The House of Orchids”, 1911; “Beyond the Breakers”, 1914; “Exposition Ode”, 1915; and “Yosemite”, 1915. Mr. Sterling is a writer to whom the sublimer aspects of nature appeal and he has a style admirably suited to their portrayal.<PARA=”57″>STICKNEY, JOSEPH TRUMBULL.Born at Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 1874. After a youth spent for the most part in Italy and Switzerland, although his family maintained a house in New York, Stickney entered Harvard University in 1891. Graduating with high classical honors in 1895, he returned to Europe to study for the degree Doctorat ès Lettres. This was conferred upon him by the University of Paris in 1903, in exchange for his two theses, “Les Sentences dans la Poésie Grecque d’Homère à Euripide” and “De Hermolai Barbari vita atque ingenio dissertationem.” This degree, the highest in the gift of the University, was never before bestowed upon an American. Stickney’s volume of poems, “Dramatic Verses,” had been published in 1902. Leaving Paris in April, 1903, Stickney spent a few months in Greece and then returned to America to become instructor in Greek at Harvard. He died in Boston, October 11, 1904. His “Poems” were collected and edited in 1905 by his friends, George Cabot Lodge, William Vaughn Moody, and John Ellerton Lodge.<PARA=”58″>SWEENEY, MILDRED MCNEIL.Born at Burnett, Wisconsin, August 30, 1871. Graduated from Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin in 1889. Mrs. Sweeney has lived much abroad. She is the author of “When Yesterday was Young”, 1908; and “Men of No Land”, London, 1912.<PARA=”59″>TEASDALE, SARA (MRS. ERNST B. FILSINGER).Born in St. Louis, Missouri, August 10, 1884. Educated at private schools. She is the author of “Sonnets to Duse”, 1907; “Helen of Troy, and Other Poems”, 1911; “Rivers to the Sea”, 1915; “Love Songs”, 1917. Editor of “The Answering Voice: A Hundred Love Lyrics by Women”, 1917. Miss Teasdale is a lyric poet of an unusually pure and spontaneous gift.<PARA=”60″>THOMAS, EDITH M.Born at Chatham, Ohio, August 12, 1854. Graduated at the Normal Institute of Geneva, Ohio. Since 1888 she has resided in New York and is a member of the editorial staff of “Harper’s Magazine.” She is the author of “A New Year’s Masque”, 1885; “Lyrics and Sonnets”, 1887; “The Inverted Torch”, 1890; “Fair Shadowland”, 1893; “In Sunshine Land”, 1895; “A Winter Swallow”, 1896; “The Dancers”, 1903; “The Guest at the Gate”, 1909; “The White Messenger”, 1915; and “The Flower from the Ashes”, 1915. Miss Thomas is a poet of rare and subtle quality. Her work is almost wholly subjective, the emotional reaction to her own experience. She has written many lyrics which are among the choicest possessions of our literature.<PARA=”61″>TORRENCE, RIDGELY.Born at Xenia, Ohio, November 27, 1875. Educated at Miami University, Ohio, and at Princeton. Served as assistant librarian at the Astor and Lenox libraries in New York City from 1897 to 1903. His volumes of poetry and poetic drama are: “The House of a Hundred Lights”, 1900; “El Dorado: A Tragedy”, 1903; “Abélard and Héloïse: A Drama”, 1907.<PARA=”62″>TOWNE, CHARLES HANSON.Born at Louisville, Kentucky, February 2, 1877. Educated at New York City College. Mr. Towne has been an active journalist, having been successively editor of “The Smart Set,” “The Delineator,” “The Designer,” and “McClure’s Magazine.” Despite his journalistic work he has found time to write several volumes of poetry of which the best known are: “The Quiet Singer, and Other Poems”, 1908; “Manhattan”, 1909; “Youth, and Other Poems”, 1910; “Beyond the Stars, and Other Poems”, 1912; and “To-day and To-morrow”, 1916.<PARA=”63″>UNTERMEYER, LOUIS.Born at New York City, October 1, 1885. Educated in the public schools of that city. He has been connected editorially with “The Masses” and with “The Seven Arts,” and does critical work for the “Chicago Evening Post.” He is the author of First Love, 1911; “Challenge”, 1914; “And Other Poets: A Book of Parodies”, 1916; “These Times”, 1917; and “The Poems of Heinrich Heine, Selected and Translated”, 1917.<PARA=”64″>UPSON, ARTHUR.Born at Camden, New York, in 1877. Educated at Camden Academy and the University of Minnesota. He is the author of “Westwind Songs”, 1902; “Octaves in an Oxford Garden”, 1902; “The City: A Poem Drama”, 1905; “The Tides of Spring, and Other Poems”, 1907. Mr. Upson died August 14, 1908. His death was an inestimable loss to American literature, as he was a poet of rare gifts which were maturing with each expression.<PARA=”65″>VIERECK, GEORGE SYLVESTER.Born in Munich, Germany, December 31, 1884. Came to America at the age of eleven years. Graduated from the College of New York City in 1906. He was for several years upon the staff of “Current Opinion” and is the editor of “The International” and of “Viereck’s American Weekly,” formerly “The Fatherland.” Mr. Viereck’s three volumes of verse are: “Nineveh, and Other Poems”, 1907; “The Candle and the Flame”, 1911; “Songs of Armageddon”, 1916.<PARA=”66″>WELSH, ROBERT GILBERT.Dramatic critic of the “Evening Telegram” of New York City. He has not yet published a collection of poetry, but has appeared in the leading magazines.<PARA=”67″>WHEELER, EDWARD J.Born at Cleveland, Ohio, March 11, 1859. Graduated from Wesleyan University in Ohio in 1879. His university conferred upon him the degree of Litt.D. in 1905. Mr. Wheeler is one of the leading journalists of America, having been editor of the “Literary Digest” from 1895 to 1905 and of “Current Literature,” now “Current Opinion,” since that date. He is also literary editor of Funk and Wagnalls Company, Publishers. Mr. Wheeler was one of the founders of the Poetry Society of America in 1909 and has been president of the organization since that date.<PARA=”68″>WHEELOCK, JOHN HALL.Born at Far Rockaway, New York, in 1886. He took the degree of A.B. from Harvard University in 1908, and spent the next two years in Germany, studying during 1909 at Göttingen and during 1910 at the University of Berlin. He is connected with the publishing house of Charles Scribner’s Sons. Mr. Wheelock’s volumes of poetry are: “The Human Fantasy”, 1911; “The Beloved Adventure”, 1912; and “Love and Liberation”, 1913.<PARA=”69″>WILKINSON, FLORENCE (MRS. WILFRID MUIR EVANS).Born at Tarrytown, New York. Miss Wilkinson studied at Chicago University and other American colleges and afterwards at the Sorbonne and the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. She is the author of several novels, of which the best known are: “The Lady of the Flag Flowers,” “The Strength of the Hills,” and “The Silent Door”; and also of one or two volumes of plays; but her most representative work is found in her poetry, of which she has written two volumes: “The Far Country”, 1906, and “The Ride Home”, 1913.<PARA=”70″>WOODBERRY, GEORGE EDWARD.Born at Beverly, Massachusetts, May 12, 1855. Graduated with the degree of A.B. from Harvard University in 1877. The degree of Litt.D. was conferred on him by Amherst College in 1905, and by Harvard University in 1911, and the degree of LL.D. by Western Reserve University in 1907. He was Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, 1877–78; also 1880–82, and was Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University 1891–1904. Professor Woodberry is one of the ablest critics and biographers in American literature as well as one of the finest poets. Among his best known volumes of criticism are: “Studies in Letters and Life,” “The Heart of Man,” “Makers of Literature,” “The Torch,” “The Appreciation of Literature,” and “The Inspiration of Poetry.” In biography he has done admirable studies of Poe, Hawthorne, Shelley, Swinburne, Emerson, etc.; and in poetry he has published many volumes, of which the most representative are: “The North Shore Watch”, 1890; “Wild Eden”, 1900; “Poems”, 1903; “The Kingdom of All Souls”, 1912; “The Flight”, 1914; and “Ideal Passion”, 1917.