author
John Hall Wheelock
1886–1978
A longtime American poet and editor, he helped shape literary life at Charles Scribner’s Sons while sustaining a writing career that stretched from the early 1900s into the year of his death. His poems are often remembered for their reflective, spiritual tone and their sense of wonder about the natural world.
1 Audiobook
The Black Panther: A book of poems
by John Hall Wheelock
About the author
Born in Far Rockaway, New York, in 1886, John Hall Wheelock grew up in Manhattan and studied at Harvard, where he was class poet, and later at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin. He published his first book of poems while still very young, beginning a literary career that lasted more than seventy years.
Wheelock became known not only as a poet but also as an influential editor. At Charles Scribner’s Sons, he worked under Maxwell Perkins and later succeeded him, helping guide major American writers and building a reputation as a thoughtful, respected figure in publishing.
As a poet, he wrote in a lyrical, meditative style and returned often to themes of faith, mystery, love, and the natural world. His long career brought wide recognition, including the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, and his final book appeared in 1978, the same year he died in New York City.