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Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of ''Spoon River Anthology'', ''The New Star Chamber and Other Essays'', ''Songs and Satires'', ''The Great Valley'', ''The Serpent in the Wilderness'' ''An Obscure Tale'', ''The Spleen'', ''Mark Twain: A Portrait'', ''Lincoln: The Man'', and ''Illinois Poems''. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry, six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman. ==Life and career== Born in Garnett, Kansas to attorney Hardin Wallace Masters and Emma J. Dexter,〔(www.english.illinois.edu )〕 his father had briefly moved to set up a law practice, then soon moved back to his paternal grandparents' farm near Petersburg in Menard County, Illinois. In 1880 they moved to Lewistown, Illinois, where he attended high school and had his first publication in the ''Chicago Daily News''. The culture around Lewistown, in addition to the town's cemetery at Oak Hill, and the nearby Spoon River were the inspirations for many of his works, most notably ''Spoon River Anthology'', his most famous and acclaimed work. Masters referenced his Welsh ancestry in the poem “Indignation” Jones.〔http://www.bartleby.com/84/22.html〕 Masters attended Knox Academy in 1889–1890, a defunct preparatory program run by Knox College, but was forced to leave due to his family's inability to finance his education. After working in his father's law office, he was admitted to the Illinois bar and moved to Chicago, where he established a law partnership with Kickham Scanlan in 1893. He married twice. In 1898 he married Helen M. Jenkins, the daughter of Robert Edwin Jenkins, a lawyer in Chicago, and had three children. During his law partnership with Clarence Darrow from 1903 to 1908, Masters defended the poor. In 1911 he started his own law firm, despite three years of unrest (1908–1911) caused by extramarital affairs and an argument with Darrow. Two of his children followed him with literary careers. His daughter Marcia pursued poetry, while his son Hilary Masters became a novelist. Hilary and his half-brother Hardin wrote a memoir of their father. Masters died at a nursing home on March 5, 1950, in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania, age 81.〔Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. ''The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: 206. ISBN 0-19-503186-5〕 He is buried in Oakland cemetery in Petersburg, Illinois. His epitaph includes his poem, "To-morrow is My Birthday" from ''Toward the Gulf'' (1918): ''Good friends, let’s to the fields…'' ''After a little walk and by your pardon,'' ''I think I’ll sleep, there is no sweeter thing.'' ''Nor fate more blessed than to sleep.'' ''I am a dream out of a blessed sleep-'' ''Let’s walk, and hear the lark.'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Edgar Lee Masters」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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