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Edgar Lee Masters [1869-1950] USA
Ranked #115 in the top 380 poets
Votes 60%: 153 up, 101 down

Attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist.

Edgar Lee Masters was born in Garnett, Kansas in 1869. A few years later, when Edgar was 11 years old his family settled at Lewiston, Illinois, near Spoon River, where Masters spent his childhood on his grandfather’s farm. Both Lewiston and Petersburg became models for the scene of his poems in Spoon River Anthology. Masters’s father was a lawyer and would not support his son’s literary aspirations. In attempting to follow in his fathers footsteps he attended Knox College, and was admitted to the bar in 1891. He settled in Chicago where he worked as a lawyer for nearly 30 years. While in Chicago he met Helen M. Jenkins who was the daughter of a Chicago lawyer 

	In 1898 Masters made his debut with A BOOK OF VERSES.  MAXIMILIAN followed soon after in 1902. His work thereafter, THE NEW STAR CHAMBER (1904) a drama written in blank verse, BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS (1905) which was a collection of essays, and two plays ALTHEA (1907) and THE BREAD OF IDLENESS (1911)

	Masters was introduced to Epigrams from the Greek Anthology in 1909, by Marion Reedy, editor of Reedy’s Mirror of St. Louis. This fueled inspiration for Master’s most famous work, Spoon River Anthology. Spoon River is realistic and often cynical epitaphs narrated by 250 people buried in the graveyard of a village in the Middle East. “You will die, nodoubt, but die while living In depths of azure, rapt and mated, Kissing the queen-bee, Life!" His mother inspired the original idea and discussed with him the people they used to know in the village. The work was first printed anonymously in Reedy’s Mirror in 1914 and 1915. It then went to publication in book form, again anonymously. The sequel, The New Spoon River, appeared in 1924, but it was not as popular as the first.Spoon River was Masters’s way to gain revenge on narrow-mindedness and hypocrisy. Although it gained vast popularity it destroyed his position as a respectable member of establishment.

	In 1921 Masters left his family and fled to Europe after his wife denied him a divorce. Since the peak of the Chicago renaissance had passed, Masters considered it impossible to return to his home town. Finally his wife granted him a divorce and he went to New York where he remarried. His new wife, Ellen Coyne Masters, was much younger and the daughter of an Irish immigrant. Ellen Masters pursued her career as a teacher while her husband retired to the Chelsea Hotel to devote his time to writing. The hotel was an attraction to writers such as Thomas Wolfe, Arthur Miller, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Arthur C. Clarke, and Allen Ginsburg.

	Other than poems, Master’s published biographies of Vachel Lindsay, whom he had befriend and fellow poet Mark Twain whom he depicted as a frustrated genius, and Walt Whitman. One of his later books that gained wide attention was his sharply analytical study of the Civil War president Abraham Lincoln (1931). Across Spoon River , Masters’s autobiography, was published in 1939.

	“Sometimes, I would see him read one of his own poems or pieces of prose over and over, as if to discover how they had been written.” (Hilary Masters on his father in Last Stands , 1982).

	Masters proceeded to produce volumes of verse almost yearly but the quality of his writing never reached the level of his masterpiece.

	His last years were spent in solitude in a small hotel in New York. He died in Philadelphia on March 5, 1950. In 1982, Hilary Masters, son from his second marriage, published a portrait of his father under the title Last Stands.

Slavery, Playwright

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1809-1865
USA
Abraham Lincoln
← biography by Edgar Lee Masters
1819-1892
USA
Walt Whitman
← biography by Edgar Lee Masters
1835-1910
USA
Mark Twain
← biography by Edgar Lee Masters
1849-1916
USA
James Whitcomb Riley
← (superficial, lacked irony) disliked by Edgar Lee Masters
1879-1931
USA
Vachel Lindsay
← biography by Edgar Lee Masters
1887-1962
USA
Robinson Jeffers
← friend of Edgar Lee Masters


WorkLangRating
Richard Bone
eng
6
Jennie M`Grew
eng
4
Blind Jack
eng
2
Mabel Osborne
eng
2
Russian Sonia
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2
The Village Atheist
eng
2
Abel Melveny
eng
1
Ace Shaw
eng
1
Ami Green
eng
1
Barney Hainsfeather
eng
1
Benjamin Fraser
eng
1
Carl Hamblin
eng
1
Davis Matlock
eng
1
Homer Clapp
eng
1
Jeremy Carlisle
eng
1
Lilian Stewart
eng
1
Rev. Abner Peet
eng
1
Roscoe Purkapile
eng
1
Serepta Mason
eng
1
Trainor the Druggist
eng
1
Willard Fluke
eng
1
A.D. Blood
eng
0
Aaron Hatfield
eng
0
Adam Weirauch
eng
0
Albert Schirding
eng
0
Alexander Throckmorton
eng
0
Alfonso Churchill
eng
0
Alfred Moir
eng
0
Amanda Barker
eng
0
Amelia Garrick
eng
0
America
eng
0
America In 1804
eng
0
America In 1904
eng
0
Amos Sibley
eng
0
Andy the Night-Watch
eng
0
Aner Clute
eng
0
Anne Rutledge
eng
0
Anthony Findlay
eng
0
Archibald Higbie
eng
0
Arlo Will
eng
0
Ballad Of Jesus Of Nazareth
eng
0
Ballad Of The Traitor’s Soul
eng
0
Ballade Of Dead Republics
eng
0
Banner Of Men Who Were Free
eng
0
Barry Holden
eng
0
Batterson Dobyns
eng
0
Benjamin Painter
eng
0
Bert Kessler
eng
0
Butch Weldy
eng
0
Calvin Campbell
eng
0
Captain Orlando Killion
eng
0
Caroline Branson
eng
0
Cassius Hueffer
eng
0
Charles Webster
eng
0
Charlie French
eng
0
Chase Henry
eng
0
Clarence Darrow
eng
0
Clarence Fawcett
eng
0
Columbus Cheney
eng
0
Conrad Siever
eng
0
Constance Hately
eng
0
Cooney Potter
eng
0
Daisy Fraser
eng
0
Daniel M`Cumber
eng
0
Deacon Taylor
eng
0
Dillard Sissman
eng
0
Dippold the Optician
eng
0
Doc Hill
eng
0
Doctor Meyers
eng
0
Dora Williams
eng
0
Dorcas Gustine
eng
0
Dow Kritt
eng
0
Dr. Siegfried Iseman
eng
0
E.C. Culbertson
eng
0
Edith Conant
eng
0
Editor Whedon
eng
0
Edmund Pollard
eng
0
Elijah Browning
eng
0
Elizabeth Childers
eng
0
Elliott Hawkins
eng
0
Elmer Karr
eng
0
Elsa Wertman
eng
0
Emily Sparks
eng
0
English Thornton
eng
0
Enoch Dunlap
eng
0
Epilogue
eng
0
Epitaph For A Dead Senator
eng
0
Ernest Hyde
eng
0
Eugene Carman
eng
0
Eugenia Todd
eng
0
Ezra Bartlett
eng
0
Faith Matheny
eng
0
Father Malloy
eng
0
Felix Schmidt
eng
0
Fiddler Jones
eng
0
Filipinos, Remember Us
eng
0
Fletcher McGee
eng
0
Flossie Cabanis
eng
0
Francis Turner
eng
0
Frank Drummer
eng
0
Franklin Jones
eng
0
George Gray
eng
0
George Trimble
eng
0
Georgine Sand Miner
eng
0
Glorious France
eng
0
Godwin James
eng
0
Granville Calhoun
eng
0
Griffy the Cooper
eng
0
Gustav Richter
eng
0
Hail! Master Death!
eng
0
Hamilton Greene
eng
0
Hamlet Micure
eng
0
Hannah Armstrong
eng
0
Hare Drummer
eng
0
Harlan Sewall
eng
0
Harmon Whitney
eng
0
Harold Arnett
eng
0
Harry Carey Goodhue
eng
0
Harry Wilmans
eng
0
Henry C. Calhoun
eng
0
Henry Layton
eng
0
Henry Phipps
eng
0
Henry Tripp
eng
0
Herbert Marshall
eng
0
Herman Altman
eng
0
Hildrup Tubbs
eng
0
Hiram Scates
eng
0
Hod Putt
eng
0
Hon. Henry Bennett
eng
0
Hortense Robbins
eng
0
Ida Chicken
eng
0
Ida Frickey
eng
0
Imanuel Ehrenhardt
eng
0
Indignation Jones
eng
0
Ippolit Konovaloff
eng
0
Isa Nutter
eng
0
Isaiah Beethoven
eng
0
J. Milton Miles
eng
0
Jack McGuire
eng
0
Jacob Godbey
eng
0
Jacob Goodpasture
eng
0
James Garber
eng
0
Jeduthan Hawley
eng
0
Jefferson Howard
eng
0
Jim Brown
eng
0
John Ballard
eng
0
John Cabanis
eng
0
John Hancock Otis
eng
0
John Horace Burleson
eng
0
John M. Church
eng
0
John Wasson
eng
0
Johnnie Sayre
eng
0
Jonas Keene
eng
0
Jonathan Houghton
eng
0
Jonathan Swift Somers
eng
0
Joseph Dixon
eng
0
Josiah Tompkins
eng
0
Judge Selah Lively
eng
0
Judge Somers
eng
0
Judson Stoddard
eng
0
Julia Miller
eng
0
Julian Scott
eng
0
Justice Arnett
eng
0
Kinsey Keene
eng
0
Knowlt Hoheimer
eng
0
Lambert Hutchins
eng
0
Le Roy Goldman
eng
0
Lois Spears
eng
0
Louise Smith
eng
0
Lucinda Matlock
eng
0
Lucius Atherton
eng
0
Lydia Humphrey
eng
0
Lydia Puckett
eng
0
Lyman King
eng
0
Magrady Graham
eng
0
Many Soldiers
eng
0
Margaret Fuller Slack
eng
0
Marie Bateson
eng
0
Mary McNeely
eng
0
Memorabilia
eng
0
Mickey M`Grew
eng
0
Minerva Jones
eng
0
Mrs. Benjamin Painter
eng
0
Mrs. Charles Bliss
eng
0
Mrs. George Reece
eng
0
Mrs. Kessler
eng
0
Mrs. Merritt
eng
0
Mrs. Meyers
eng
0
Mrs. Purkapile
eng
0
Mrs. Sibley
eng
0
Mrs. Williams
eng
0
Nancy Knapp
eng
0
Nellie Clark
eng
0
Nicholas Bindle
eng
0
O Glorious France
eng
0
Oaks Tutt
eng
0
Ollie McGee
eng
0
On a Bust
eng
0
On A Picture Of John D. Rockefeller
eng
0
Oscar Hummel
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0
Paul McNeely
eng
0
Pauline Barrett
eng
0
Peleg Poague
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0
Penniwit, the Artist
eng
0
Percival Sharp
eng
0
Percy Bysshe Shelley
eng
0
Perry Zoll
eng
0
Petit, the Poet
eng
0
Plymouth Rock Joe
eng
0
Professor Newcomer
eng
0
Race Suicide
eng
0
Ralph Rhodes
eng
0
Rebecca Wasson
eng
0
Reuben Pantier
eng
0
Rev. Lemuel Wiley
eng
0
Rita Matlock Gruenberg
eng
0
Robert Davidson
eng
0
Robert Fulton Tanner
eng
0
Robert Southey Burke
eng
0
Roger Heston
eng
0
Rosie Roberts
eng
0
Roy Butler
eng
0
Russell Kincaid
eng
0
Rutherford McDowell
eng
0
Sam Hookey
eng
0
Samson And Delilah
eng
0
Samuel
eng
0
Samuel Gardner
eng
0
Sarah Brown
eng
0
Scholfield Huxley
eng
0
Schroeder the Fisherman
eng
0
Searcy Foote
eng
0
Seth Compton
eng
0
Sexsmith the Dentist
eng
0
Shack Dye
eng
0
Silas Dement
eng
0
Silence
eng
0
State`s Attorney Fallas
eng
0
Supplication
eng
0
Tennessee Claflin Shope
eng
0
The Circuit Judge
eng
0
The Hill
eng
0
The Pioneer
eng
0
The Spooniad
eng
0
The Temple
eng
0
The Town Marshal
eng
0
The Two Souls
eng
0
The Unknown
eng
0
The World-Saver
eng
0
Theodore the Poet
eng
0
Thomas Rhodes
eng
0
Thomas Ross, Jr.
eng
0
Thomas Trevelyan
eng
0
Tom Beatty
eng
0
Tom Merritt
eng
0
Voltaire Johnson
eng
0
W. Lloyd Garrison Standard
eng
0
Wallace Ferguson
eng
0
Walter Simmons
eng
0
Washington McNeely
eng
0
Webster Ford
eng
0
Wendell P. Bloyd
eng
0
Widow McFarlane
eng
0
William and Emily
eng
0
William Goode
eng
0
William H. Herndon
eng
0
William Jones
eng
0
Willie Metcalf
eng
0
Willie Pennington
eng
0
Yee Bow
eng
0
Zenas Witt
eng
0
Zilpha Marsh
eng
0

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