author
Lesley Frost
1899–1983
Best known as Robert Frost’s daughter, she also built a life of her own as a children’s author, teacher, and lecturer on English literature. Her memoir of childhood in New Hampshire offers a rare, intimate view of the world that shaped one of America’s great poets.
1 Audiobook
Murder at Large
by Lesley Frost
About the author
Lesley Frost Ballantine, who preferred to be known simply as Lesley Frost, was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on April 28, 1899. She was the second child of Robert and Elinor Frost, and her early years in Derry, New Hampshire later became the basis for New Hampshire’s Child: The Derry Journals of Lesley Frost, published in 1969.
According to archival biographies, she attended Wellesley College for a year, later spent brief periods at Barnard College and the University of Michigan, and eventually worked in a range of literary and teaching roles. Her career included managing a bookstore in Pittsfield, teaching in Illinois and Washington, D.C., and serving in Madrid as cultural officer and director of the United States Information Library after World War II. She was also described by the University of Virginia as an author of children’s books and a lecturer on English literature.
What makes her especially interesting is how she stood close to a famous literary legacy without being limited by it. Her writing and public work suggest someone deeply engaged with books, language, and education, while her memoir preserves a vivid family and regional history in her own voice.