Edgar Lee Masters was born in Garnett, Kansas on August 23, 1869. He moved to Illinois as an infant and during his childhood years lived in the small towns of the Sangamon Valley. He studied German, Greek and law for one year at Knox College, and in 1892, when he was admitted to the Illinois bar, moved to Chicago. There he spent approximately twenty-five years as a successful attorney, eight of them in partnership with Clarence Darrow.

During his years as a lawyer, Masters wrote and published two collections of verse and seven unproduced plays. Spoon River Anthology, the book for which he is best known, was published in 1915. As a result of the success of this book, he gave up his law practice in 1923 and moved to New York City, where he spent most of the rest of his life.

Spoon River Anthology consists of 244 first-person dramatic monologues by a variety of residents of a typical small Midwestern town, who speak from their graves in the mythical Spoon River cemetery. The book was an instant success and went through nearly seventy editions during Masters's lifetime alone. Selections from the book are included in virtually every anthology of American poetry, and many of them have been adapted for stage and television presentation. Together with Carl Sandburg and Vachel Lindsay, Masters was responsible for the "poetic Renaissance" that arose in the Middle West during the second decade of the twentieth century.

Masters died in a convalescent home in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, on March 5, 1950. He was a member of the Literary Club from 1911 to 1916. He presented two papers. Of all our members he is perhaps alone in being remembered for his literary achievements. For more information click here.

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