From Library Journal
A writer and lawyer, Masters (1868-1950) achieved readership, fame, and controversy with the publication of Spoon River Anthology (SRA) in 1915. Having grown up in rural Illinois, his setting for the Spoon River epitaphs, Masters wanted to write truths that were purely American. Freeing himself from poetic rules, which earned him much criticism, Masters created the 214 poems that make up the SRA. Masters published 54 works poetry, plays, essays, novels, biographies but none received the international success or critical attention that SRA did. Initially, Masters had a successful law practice (Clarence Darrow was an associate), but he chose to write for a living, without much financial reward or emotional satisfaction. His adult nature was not admirable; he was frequently an absent father, a womanizer (to put it charitably), and acrimonious in his dealings with other writers. Once he was publishing, he began a slow downward spiral. But his poetry speaks of another Masters; the truths found there are unassailable, aloft with dreams and aspirations. Russell achieves a splendidly multidimensional view of Masters, the complex man as well as the prolific writer, through the use of the author's manuscripts, diaries, business documents, and materials that relate to his two marriages and many extramarital affairs. Recommended. Robert Lee Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., IN Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Library Journal
Russell achieves a splendidly multidimensional view of Masters, the complex man as well as the prolific writer.


From the Inside Flap
"This is the first full biography of Masters, and it is also likely to be the last, Russell has done his job so well. Russell strikes just the right tone toward his deeply flawed subject: generous and empathic but also clear-sighted and unsentimental. Crisply written, meticulously research and documented, this is the biography of Masters for the foreseeable future." -- James Hurt, author of Writing Illinois: The Prairie, Lincoln, and Chicago.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This is the first book-length biography of Edgar Lee Masters, author of the celebrated Spoon River Anthology, one of the most widely read and discussed volumes of poetry ever written in America.

Like Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, and the other "prairie poets," Masters (1868-1950) left his small midwestern hometown for Chicago in the hope of becoming a successful writer. He was a family man and a partner in Clarence Darrow's Chicago law firm -- writing on the side -- when, at the age of forty-six, his boyhood dream of literary success suddenly came true. His Spoon River Anthology, a series of monologues spoken by the dead in a midwestern cemetery, became a literary sensation overnight. Castigated by some critics for its "shredded prose" and offensive subject matter, Spoon River Anthology was hailed by others as a watershed in American poetry: a direct, unsentimental, realistic treatment of the blood, grit, and pathos of life in middle America. It was Masters's only lasting success.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

A writer and lawyer, Masters (1868-1950) achieved readership, fame, and controversy with the publication of Spoon River Anthology (SRA) in 1915. Having grown up in rural Illinois, his setting for the Spoon River epitaphs, Masters wanted to write truths that were purely American. Freeing himself from poetic rules, which earned him much criticism, Masters created the 214 poems that make up the SRA. Masters published 54 works poetry, plays, essays, novels, biographies but none received the international success or critical attention that SRA did. Initially, Masters had a successful law practice (Clarence Darrow was an associate), but he chose to write for a living, without much financial reward or emotional satisfaction. His adult nature was not admirable; he was frequently an absent father, a womanizer (to put it charitably), and acrimonious in his dealings with other writers. Once he was publishing, he began a slow downward spiral. But his poetry speaks of another Masters; the truths found there are unassailable, aloft with dreams and aspirations. Russell achieves a splendidly multidimensional view of Masters, the complex man as well as the prolific writer, through the use of the author's manuscripts, diaries, business documents, and materials that relate to his two marriages and many extramarital affairs. Recommended. Robert Lee Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., IN Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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