Ella Wheeler Wilcox Biography

Dromo's Den

WILCOX, Ella Wheeler (1855-[1919]). An American journalist and writer of popular verse, born at Johnstown Centre, Wis. She was educated at the University of Wisconsin and married (1884) Robert M. Wilcox, of Meriden, Conn. Soon afterward she moved to New York. She was at an early age a frequent contributor to journals. Among her collections of verse are: Drops of Water: Temperance Poems (1872); Maurine (1876); Shells (1873); Poems of Passion (1883) , her best-known performance; Poems of Pleasure (1888); Picked Poems (1912). Other books of hers are: Mal Moulée (1886), a novel; Men, Women; and Emotions (1896); Sweet Danger (1902); Story of a Literary Career (1905); Sailing Sunny Seas (1910); 3 Woman of the World (1912); The Art of Being Alive (1914). She also wrote many short essays for the New York Journal and Chicago American. Though critics refused to take her work seriously, she found a large public for her writings in both verse and prose.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 557.