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Edgar Lee Masters Research Paper

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Edgar Lee Masters was born on August 23, 1868 in Garnett, Kansas. His parents were Emma Jershua Masters and Hardin Wallace Masters. He grew up in the western Illinois farmlands of Petersburg and Lewiston, where his grandparents had settled in the 1820s. He went to school in both Petersburg and Lewiston, but graduated from Lewiston High School. He spent a year at a college preparatory school hoping to gain admission to Knox College (Lewis; Primeau). Instead of continuing with college, Lewis claims that Masters, “spent a year in Galesburg writing poetry and reading everything he could get his hands on.” Masters’ father was concerned with his interest in literature and made him return home and work in his law office (Lewis). Once Masters returned home, he worked as a clerk in his father’s law office and had a brief partnership with him. In 1891, Masters was admitted to the Illinois Bar and became an attorney (Lewis). That same year, he moved to Chicago and worked as a bill collector. In 1893, he formed a partnership with Kickham Scanlan. In 1898, he married Helen Jenkin whom he had three children with (Primeau). According to Lewis, Masters established a law partnership with Clarence Darrow from 1903 …show more content…

Five years later, Masters retired from his law practice and devoted all of his time to writing (Ruihley). In 1924, he released The New Spoon River, which was similar to Spoon River Anthology (Wagner). Between the years of 1926 and 1942, Masters released about thirty books, but none were as successful as Spoon River Anthology (Lewis). Spoon River Anthology was his first achievement and his last. According to Ruihley, if Spoon River Anthology did not have such powerful language, it would have never even interested readers like it did (Ruihley). Even though he was not as successful in his writing as he wanted, he was still successful in other

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