Lee Wilson Dodd

Lee Wilson Dodd was an American writer born in Franklin, Pennsylvania, on July 11, 1879, and he died in New York City on May 16, 1933. Reliable reference sources describe him as a playwright, poet, novelist, and short story writer, and they also note that several of his plays were made into films.

He studied at Yale, graduating from Yale College in 1899 and Yale Law School in 1902. After a few years in law, he turned to literature instead. Over time he also taught and lectured, with documented ties to Smith College, Sarah Lawrence College, Wesleyan University, and Yale.

His surviving papers at Yale show how wide-ranging his work was, preserving drafts of plays and other writings from across his career. Contemporary accounts from 1933 report that he had been chosen to succeed George Pierce Baker in playwriting at Yale, a sign of the respect he had earned in American literary and theater circles by the end of his life.