From the Biographical Notes of "The Second Book of Modern Verse" (1919, 1920), edited by Jessie B. Rittenhouse:
Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Born at Head Tide, Maine, Dec. 22, 1869. Educated at Harvard University. 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. He is recognized as one of the finest and most distinguished poets of our time. His successive volumes are: "Children of the Night", 1897; "Captain Craig", 1902; "The Town Down the River", 1910; "The Man against the Sky", 1916; "Merlin", 1917; and "Launcelot", 1920. The last-named volume was awarded a prize of five hundred dollars, given by The Lyric Society for the best book manuscript offered to it in 1919. In addition to his work in poetry, Mr. Robinson has written two prose plays, "Van Zorn", and "The Porcupine".
In "American Poetry Since 1900", Louis Untermeyer notes, "his name was known only to a few of the literati until Theodore Roosevelt... acclaimed and aided him." Rittenhouse's Biographical Notes (above quoted) contain this entry immediately before Edwin Arlington Robinson's: "Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt.... Mrs. Robinson, who is a sister to Col. Theodore Roosevelt,... has written several volumes of verse...." It is always interesting to see the coincidence of events in history, and it is worth asking if this was not even a causal relationship.—A. L.
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