Edwin Arlington Robinson

Bio

(1869-1935) Poet, Pulitzer Prize Winner. Edwin Robinson was born in Head Tide, Maine, and attended Harvard University from 1891 – 1893. At the time of his death Robinson was considered by many to be the greatest poet in the United States. He is now best remembered for his short poems characterizing various residents of “Tilbury Town.” Robinson grew up in Gardner, Maine (the prototype for “Tilbury Town”). His first volume of verse, “The Torrent and the Night Before,” was published at his own expense in 1896. The following year some of these poems were published with additions as “The Children of the Night.” In 1899, Robinson settled in New York City, living at 51 Washington Square South, 121 Washington Place, 28 West 8th Street, and 450 West 23rd Street, and supported himself by various odd jobs. A third volume of poetry, “Captain Craig” (1902), was poorly received by critics. Robinson had, however, an admirer in president Theodore Roosevelt, who secured for the struggling poet a job in the New York customs house, where he worked from 1905 to 1909. From 1911 until his death Robinson spent his summers at the MacDowell Colony for artists and writers (in Peterborough, New Hampshire). He finally achieved critical recognition with “The Man Against the Sky” (1916). Thereafter he concentrated on long, psychological narrative poems, such as “Avon’s Harvest” (1921), “The Man Who Died Twice” (1924; Pulitzer Prize), “Dionysus in Doubt” (1925), “Cavender’s House”(1929), “Talifer” (1933), “King Jasper” (1935) and the Arthurian romances “Merlin” (1917), “Lancelot” (1920), and “Tristram” (1928; Pulitzer Prize). A quiet, introverted man, Robinson never married and became legendary for his reclusiveness. He lived on Richmond Hill, now Lighthouse Hill, around 1913.