Elinor Wylie

Born in Somerville, New Jersey, in 1885, Elinor Wylie was an American poet and novelist who rose to prominence in the years after World War I. She grew up in a prominent family, spent part of her youth in Washington, D.C., and became almost as famous in her lifetime for her beauty and dramatic personal life as for her writing.

Her breakthrough came with Nets to Catch the Wind in 1921, a poetry collection admired for its precision, lyric grace, and finely wrought images. She went on to publish several more books of poetry and four novels, building a reputation for work that combines formal control with sensuality, fantasy, and a cool, exact style.

Wylie's life was marked by illness, scandal, and restless change, and she died in New York City in 1928 at just forty-three. Even so, her best poems have endured, and she remains an appealing figure for readers drawn to sharp craftsmanship, romantic atmosphere, and the literary glamour of the 1920s.