author
Odell Shepard
1884–1967
Best known for bringing together poetry, scholarship, and public life, this American writer won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Bronson Alcott. He also spent decades teaching literature at Trinity College and later served as Connecticut’s lieutenant governor.
1 Audiobook
A Lonely Flute
by Odell Shepard
About the author
Born in Sterling, Illinois, in 1884, he built an unusually varied career as a professor, poet, editor, biographer, and politician. He studied at Harvard, taught in the English department at Yale, and then spent many years at Trinity College, where he served as a professor of English and held the Goodwin Professorship.
His literary work ranged widely. He edited writers including Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and his 1937 book Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Readers interested in reflective nature writing also remember him for books such as The Harvest of a Quiet Eye and for his clear affection for New England landscapes.
Shepard’s life also extended into public service. He served as the 86th lieutenant governor of Connecticut from 1941 to 1943, a rare example of a man equally at home in literary study and civic life. He died in New London, Connecticut, in 1967.