Author Nancy Milford spent more than thirty years writing her biography on the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. The thirty years paid off, as this is the most definitive bio of Edna to date. Edna St. Vincent Millay was a passionate, wild, and extremely talented woman who became a heroine of the Jazz Age, and her poetry was both controversial and incredible. She was also the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. The author, with the help of Millay's sister, also goes into detail on Edna's later life, when she became addicted to morphine, and her mysterious death. This is a story of a woman who was a celebrity in her time, carrying on affairs with both women and men, writing blatantly about sexuality, and a mysterious private life that was never revealed until now.
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The review of this Book prepared by Amanda Goodwin
While Nancy Milford's biography is rich in detail about this poet's short and complicated life, it is fraught with bad editing. Saying Millay is 5' 1" on one page, 5' 4" on another with no explanation. Saying Millay was
supporting six people and naming only two. It seems to me she was being careful to not offend the controllers of the Millay estate and at the same time please her publishers.
The review of this Book prepared by Jenifer Kay Hood
Vincent Millay was the voice of an era. Famous, infamous...her face, her voice, her poetry, and her plays were fervently embraced across the country. She could be witty, playful, poignant, pointed, sarcastic. She rose from a poor single-parent household to become one of the most renowned women of all time, yet she never quite escaped her financial slump, she never settled for one man (or woman), she never reconciled with her sister Kathleen. Her poetry continues to touch readers today--because she wrote poetry of every emotion, and she had cause to feel many.
The review of this Book prepared by Sarrah
