Book Description

Thomas Hardy once said that America had two great attractions: the skyscraper and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The most famous poet of the Jazz Age, Millay captivated the nation: She smoked in public, took many lovers (men and women, single and married), flouted convention sensationally, and became the embodiment of the New Woman.

Thirty years after her landmark biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, Nancy Milford returns with an iconic portrait of this passionate, fearless woman who obsessed America even as she tormented herself. Chosen by USA Today as one of the top ten books of the year, Savage Beauty is a triumph in the art of biography. Millay was an American original—one of those rare characters, like Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway, whose lives were even more dramatic than their art. ... Read more

Reviews (42)

A book as intoxicating as its subject
A phenomenon when she burst onto the literary scene in the Twenties, Edna Millay, I believe, would herself be pleased with this phenomenal biography. I discovered Millay's poetry when I was in high school in Kansas in the Fifties, the Beatnik era, but in Kansas, I certainly knew no Beatniks. Millay became my muse, the poetic string connecting me to another world beyond the endless fields of corn and wheat. I visited her home in Greenwich Village, read all of her poetry, and can still quote long passages from memory.
Savage Beauty, a large book, does ample justice to the large personality of Millay, chronicling her life and lifestyle, both of which were 'unconventional,' in every sense of the word. Such was the impact of this genius, this 'force of nature,' that she willfully created her persona, in the process lifting herself and her dependent family out of poverty and onto the front pages.
The intensity of her poetic works is mirrored in the intensity with which she lived her life. Her short signature poem 'I burn my candle at both ends; it will not last the night. But ah my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light' became a slogan for an era - and even more, a definition of her own life, at the end of which she did, indeed, flame out in an excess of living.

Renascence woman
"Renascence" has always been one of my favorite poems. Did you know Millay wrote it when she was only twenty? Milford includes other interesting little tidbits, as well as a detailed analysis of the woman who burned her candle at both ends. Yes, she died young, a drug addict and an alcoholic. Milford also includes her affairs with men and women, her problems with money, and her health problems, but I found the family relationships most interesting (Lots of pictures).
Millay's mother kicked her feckless husband out of the house, as did her grandmother (who was killed by a runaway horse)hers; all three of the Millay sisters were poets (Norma, the least ambitious of the three, writes a sonnet to rival Edna's best towards the end of the book). The youngest sister, Kathleen, was a sad case. Although she published a couple of novels and several books of poetry, she was jealous of Edna, hounded her for money, and did her level best to embarrass her in print. Millay's mother was the true inspiration for Edna. She read the girls poetry, wrote some of her own (publishing toward the end of her life). She validates B.F. Skinner's theory on parental inspiration and Edna gave her credit.
We also see the writer as performance artist. Edna wins a contest and is invited to read for literary societies in her home town, during which time she wins the support of a woman who sponsors her application to Vassar. According to Milford, Millay was an electrifying reader and became famous largely because of her book tours. She even did radio during a time when poetry was given its due.
Millay also wrote plays and even a book for an opera, all of which did well. She was a true Renascence woman.

A fantastic read!
This is one of the best books I have read in several years. It is magical, provocative,and educational - a true treasure. I've never been interested in reading biographies, but after reading this, I've realized what I've been missing.

I also disagree with one reviewer that Edna St. Vincent Millay is "obscure" to most living Americans. I think many easily recognize her name - and even if they don't, this book is a fabulous way to learn about an otherwise unfamiliar individual.

Promiscuity and tenderness
The first poem of Millay's I read was "The Spring and the Fall", shown to me by a jr. high school friend. Edna St. Vincent Millay has always somehow been with me since then, especially since I began teaching her poems in my English classes more than a decade ago.

What really motivated me to buy this book were student questions about Millay's life that I couldn't answer based on the meager materials I had at hand; for example, 'Why did Millay's mother ask Millay's father to leave the family?' and 'How could Millay write such tender poetry when she was so promiscuous?'

I'm glad to say that this book provided answers to these and many other questions I'd never have thought to ask. Milford's work helps the reader begin to know the very complex personality behind the poetic genius and tenderness - as well as the nymphomania and utter self-centeredness. Millay had electrifying charm, and it probably is very difficult not to use this to personal advantage when one has it.

Milford also delves into some of the origins underlying Millay's life choices by describing her family life and relationships in considerable detail. Since a very young age, Millay had to be the strong one who held things together in her family, and she was perhaps never able to find someone strong enough to look after *her* in the same way - she held the upper hand in almost every relationship she had, and this paved the way for abuse of her formidable personal power.

Millay was so indulged by the world and herself that she must have felt either invincible or simply fatalistic as she slid ever more deeply into what could only be called debauchery, and later serious chemical dependence.

The side biographies interwoven into the book are fascinating as well - how Millay's husband Eugen consciously chose to indulge and put up with Millay as a path to his own self-realization, which he built on the excitement of being near the vortex of Millay's poetic and emotional tempests. There are George Slocombe and George Dillon, two men who succeeded in truly captivating Millay for extended periods of time. And then there's the ongoing comic relief provided by descriptions of the author's interactions with Millay's one surviving (at the time of the writing) sister Norma, who in spite of a disinclination to write otherwise once penned a quite brilliant sonnet in a desperate - and successful - attempt to get Edna's attention when Edna was largely ignoring her. Norma later expressed anger at 'what it took' just to get Edna to answer her letters. And then there's the different levels of competition among the four Millay women, Edna, her mother Cora, who also aspired to being a poet, Norma, who reluctantly provided the author with access to Edna's papers, and the youngest sister Kathleen, who wrote very good poetry that came at the wrong moment from the wrong family.

This book is exhilarating. It's just the kind the more mundane among us read to find out about lives we will never and would never ourselves live.

Amazing
I had no idea Ms. Millay had led such a fascinating and tumultuous life. This is wonderfully written and not at all dry like you'd expect. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

A great book for the summer
Fun and light, this is a perfect beach read. Marion Meade is a terrific writer and brings the four women back to life. Learn all about the parties, the gossip, and their outlandish lifestyles...

Intelligent, Juicy and Thoroughly Entertaining
Sex. Drugs. Booze. Wild parties. No, it's not another rock-and-roll band tell-all. It's Marion Meade's intelligent, juicy and thoroughly entertaining BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN.

Meade's latest effort recounts in luscious detail the lives, loves, closeted skeletons and tormented souls of Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber --- literary figures whose stars burned brightly and whose legends took form in the period in American history bracketed by the end of World War One and the beginning of the Great Depression.

BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN is divided into eleven chapters, each covering a single year from 1920 to 1930. The four women form the core of the narrative, which spirals outward as it advances through the decade of the Roaring Twenties to include a host of figures that swarmed around New York City's journalism, theater and publishing hives. Variously entwined and entangled with the women at the center of the giddy gin- and hormone-fueled maelstrom are dozens of familiar names, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and other members of the notorious Algonquin Roundtable; H. L. Mencken; and of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Meade's exhaustive research and crisp writing have produced a work that is at once a fascinating history of the American literary scene in the Twenties and a sensational beach read, a thinking-person's soap opera. A welcome antidote to the assorted dullards and contrived situations of reality television, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN delivers smart, extraordinarily talented real people, human beings with the obsessions, neurosis and psychological baggage that are part of the requisite chemistry of artistic genius, literary or otherwise.

In their twenties during the Twenties, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber were, like their contemporaries, people who gleefully ignored inconvenient laws and problematic social conventions. They were at various times heartbreakers and heartbroken. The men in their lives acted either as the hero/protector, or like navigationally challenged birds that fly into windowpanes.

As a kind of who's who of American writers of the era, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN offers a compelling portrait of a unique period in American cultural history. While many of the real-life characters in this wonderful book ultimately found something less than happy endings, one feels perhaps a greater sense of loss for the passing of an era when print was king and writers were revered as stars in their own right. (It must also be observed, however, that they were also the subjects of a level of public interest and scrutiny that made Scott and Zelda the Ben and J-Lo of their day.)

H. G. Wells, who makes a brief appearance at a party in BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN, was, of course, the author of THE TIME MACHINE. In a profound and thoroughly engaging way, author Marion Meade has provided readers with the means to travel back to 1920 and witness the lives of four women whose voices, vices and literary virtues added to the roar. It is a journey well worth the effort.

--- (...)

Thoroughly entertaining
This is a delightful read to be sure. With prose that sparkles and mirrors the era, the four talented and eccentric ladies are brought into full relief.

Take a Trip Back to the Twenties
Marion Meade's new book Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin is like manna from heaven for aficionados of the Roaring Twenties.

Seventeen years ago Meade wrote What Fresh Hell is This? It remains the definitive Dorothy Parker biography; now she expands on the 10 most exciting years of Parker's life, along with Edna Ferber, Zelda Fitzgerald and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The subtitle of Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin is "Writer's Running Wild in the Twenties" and it is an exciting read that zeroes in on one decade in the lives of the four women and those close to them. There are other, longer, and deeper biographies and autobiographies of the quartet, but this book digs beneath the surface about what made them so unique, powerful and passionate about what they did.

Meade had a real challenge before her. The reader knows how all four will end up post-1930. The task was to shine a spotlight on the crucial years when all four came into their own and were either on their way up, or down, professionally or personally. Some of the tale is humorous, often tragic, but always fascinating. Anyone who's read about these women before is sure to learn something new that bigger books might have overlooked.

If you're reading Bobbed Hair and happen to be a lover of writers, history, old books and the theatre, then you might know what's around the corner for all of these women. The stock market crash of 1929 is looming. The Depression is on its way. Prohibition will end. Adolph Hitler is coming to power. And yet the book brings these women and their cohorts so vividly to life, like it was only yesterday that they were creating new material and turning up in the gossip columns. ... Read more

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

Poet, playwright, and translator Daniel Mark Epstein certainly has the right background to understand and evaluate poet, playwright, and translator Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)--though Millay didn't write biographies. Readers of Epstein's Sister Aimee and Nat King Cole will recognize the intense personal engagement the author brings to his task. He's not afraid to express an almost physical fascination for his subjects, which is especially appropriate for the flamboyant Millay, who insisted on the right to take as many lovers as she pleased and to write about them in some of the greatest erotic poetry in American verse. Epstein focuses on that poetry, deciphering the affairs that fueled it and elucidating the boldly iconoclastic, almost cynical acceptance of love's fleeting nature that informs it. (Of the last sonnet in A Few Figs from Thistles, with its notorious putdown, "I shall forget you presently, my dear / So make the most of this, your little day," he remarks: "For a woman, not yet thirty, to compose and market such a poem... was a scandal, an alarm, and a red flag to censors.") While the Edna St. Vincent Millay who emerges in Nancy Milford's Savage Beauty is indelibly shaped by her upbringing, particularly her relationship with her mother and sisters, Epstein's Millay is a self-created goddess of love and literature. It's fascinating to compare these two biographies, published nearly simultaneously and each with considerable merits. Milford's lengthy book, the product of three decades of research, is lavish with details and comprehensive in scope. Epstein's more selective work excels in cogent summaries and forcefully stated opinions. Either book will satisfy readers with an interest in Millay or American literature; really passionate aficionados of the art of biography will want to read both. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Reviews (6)

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed.....
Mr. Epstein's passion for his subject was the first attractor for me upon reading this well written, intriguing biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, specifically focusing on her very tumultuous love life and the poetry which was birthed due to her romantic and [physical relations].

The prose reads like Mr. Epstein has fallen in love with Edna just as the many men in her path fell in love with her.

I also found the diversions which came later (like the horse Chaladon) and her well known descent into alcoholism and drug addiction were very compelling to dive into: I would have appreciated more of these times, although the limited documentation available would explain why there isn't more information here.

This book does its job well: makes me more curious about Edna St. Vincent Millay: from her poetry, her plays and her life outside the written word.

Terrific reading
Daniel Mark Epstein brings a special understanding to Edna St Vincent Millay's biography by virtue of being a poet himself. I think that's why this book is in many ways superior to the Nancy Mitford book.

Edna St Vincent Millay was not only a great person of words, but a great seductress and everyone, male and female alike, fell under her spell. Apparently, accordingly to this book, she managed to live up to their expectations quite well. Mr Epstein matches the love poems to the folks they were written for and gives the details of the various affairs. It may not sound interesting, but it is quite interesting - especially since M's Millay seemed to have a weakness for men who were not quite as talented as she was. The background behind "Fatal Interview" and the story of her (apparently) one love she lost before_she_ was ready to is quite an interesting read by itself.

Mr Epstein focuses on M's Millay as sort of a self made goddess and how her various affairs shaped her writing. M's Mitford focuses on how M's Millay's relationship with her mother shaped her life. Both of these are very interesting and I'd advise reading them consecutively and draw your own conclusions. In some respects, I think Mr Epstein is correct in what he presumes, but the same can be said of M's Mitford.

Throw yourself into the words and life of Edna St Vincent Millay - you'll find yourself awash with her beautiful poetry and prose and this book will help you make sense out of it.

enamored of Millay
Daniel Mark Epstein, like so many men of her own time, is obviously enamored of Edna St. Vincent Millay. He urges that she be restored to the "canon",although her work has not been lauded in recent years.

The intense, highly emotional poet comes alive in the pages of his well-researched book. She comes to us as a rebel, determined to live on her own terms, to make love with the freedom of a man,to explore the ecstatic heights of feeling. (Shelley, the author tells us, was her idol.)

A central point that I feel Epstein misses is that, although she may have escaped the feminine role dictated by conventions of her time, she did not escape her own compulsion to make the search for love the driving force of her actions. Her poetry also has as its overriding theme, romantic and sexual love. For this reason she missed achieving stature as a great poet. Even though she possessed a great facility for language, her works are too limited in scope.

Her eventual descent into alcoholism and drug addiction can serve as a cautionary tale against the wild self-indulgence and perpetual adolescence that plagued Millay. It must be said, however, that her verbal gifts were so great that even in the midst of her addled despair in later life, she was able still to produce, although the work then was of lesser quality.

Kudoes for Epstein's carefully researched, comprehensive biography.

Comprehensive Survey of This Poet's Life
This biography was a fast and furious read, due to the great anecdotes as well as the tightly-written analysis. Ms. Millay's life was a whirlwind and many heretofore unknown facts and episodes are revealed, adding richness to the typical chronological description of this writer's life. Ms. Millay was more than a writer, she was a full-blown creative personality, in a time when to do so as a woman from a modest background was virtually unheard of. Even for those who do not know her poems or do not usually read literary biography, this book documents a fascinating woman's life and is well worth picking up.

What a GREAT READ!!!
This compellingly readable, lushly evocative biography focuses on the lovers and the love affairs that inspired Millay's best-known poetry. While Millay capitalized on her public image as a jazz-age "free spirit"--reckless, heedless and enjoying every minute-- her life story reads like a great, tragic Romantic novel.
Millay's hardscrabble childhood in turn-of-the(20th)-century Maine is so vividly conjured in Epstein's story, you can just about smell the smoke from the cast iron stove as she careens between the crushing responsibility of caring for her younger sisters and the imaginative escape she forged through music, theater and poetry. Through a combination of sly manipulation, talent and sheer luck, Millay went from being an arty local eccentric to a national celebrity--the cynosure of the Manhattan literary scene--at the age of 20, virtually overnight. The seemingly incongruous combination of her porcelain-doll looks and unabashedly passionate (yet formally rigorous) poetry acted like catnip for her contemporaries, men and women alike: she looked like an angel, behaved like a libertine, and packed an intellectual wallop equal to that of any man. Epstein describes the compulsive pace at which, during the height of her poetic production, Millay conducted many, often simultaneous, love affairs, lavishing indifference on the legions who worshipped her image and reputation, and suffering agonizing unrequited passion for the (relatively few) others.
By focusing on the most significant affairs and linking them (with impressive use of both painstaking scholarship and critical insight)to specific poems, Epstein incisively portrays the emotional pitch of the time without getting bogged down in endless lists of names, dates and locations. By crafting the narrative in this way, Epstein selects and contextualizes Millay's own words and documented actions to show--not tell-- how both physical illness and a likely manic-depressive disorder spiralled under the pressure to live up to her own legend. This is masterful storytelling, through and through.
Much as she was rescued, "deus ex machina" from an small-time life in Maine by a dowager patroness, Millay was rescued again in 1923, this time from life-threatening illness and despondency by a real-life Romantic hero (a Belgian Mr. Darcy?), whom she had the good sense to marry. While he set aside his own business to support her work and to shelter her from the strain of public and critical scrutiny, their idyllic rural marriage scenario stultified her creativity. Millay's dogged pursuit (with her husband's active consent) of an affair with a reluctant younger man is affectingly portrayed as a desperate, unconsciously delusional act of self-abasement in the service of her own (fading) sexual persona and the poetry which that persona had always sponsored so reliably. And it worked: great sonnets happened, albeit at no small cost. The waning of this affair, plus a series of illnesses and accidents, provided a host of pretexts for Millay's descent into astoundingly heavy-duty drug addiction and alcoholism. Epstein conveys the wrenching pathos of her repeated struggles to overcome these addictions, with--and, later, without-- her husband's devoted help. Set into this context, excerpts from her journals and letters illuminate a more richly layered, genuine and fragile Millay than other biographies even begin to approach.
Epstein--a highly accomplished poet himself--thankfully resists the temptation to psychoanalyze, sensationalize or turn Millay's life story into a morality tale. Instead, this beautifully-written, insightful and engaging feat of storytelling captures the essence of a real-life Romantic spirit who made poetry the only way she knew how--by living it. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Vincent - An Early 20th Century Poet Defined
This portrayal of Edna St. Vincent Millay is not only a solid biography, but a finely crafted novel in itself.Bringing you through her artistically bohemian childhood through to her wildly aware college years and beyond, this is a book filled with a most vivid depiction of the poet's life while attempting to recreate her views of growing up on the east coast in Penobscot and attending school at Vassar.I would suggest it to anyone who enjoys biographies, literature, Millay's work, or early 20th century history. ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document, covering the life and work of Edna St. Vincent Millay, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thomson Gale. The length of the entry is 6511 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
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• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
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Book Description

This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on September 1, 2001. The length of the article is 4015 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Edna St. Vincent Millay's doubly burning candles.
Author: X. J. Kennedy
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2001
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 20Issue: 1Page: 96

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary figure?

Turn to "Dictionary of Literary Biography" for the finest literature reference material. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of reference information--this e-doc contains a biographical essay written by a noted literary expert as well as extensive primary and secondary bibliographies. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Catalog Worthy of a Book
This 47 page catalog so thoroughly describes the materials in the New York Library's 1992 exhibition commemorating the anniversary of Edna St. Vincent Millay's 100th birthday as to tell the story of the poet's life. One can read reprinted letters and poetry. There are pictures of Millay not published in biographies of her. In particular the cover holds a rare photograph of Millay with her mother and two sisters. ... Read more