Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay

This beautifully produced first annotated edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s oeuvre re-presents the work of the Jazz Age’s most famous poet More than sixty years after her death, the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay continues to captivate new generations of readers. The twentieth-century American author was catapulted to fame after the publication of Renascence, her first major work and a poem written while she was still a teenager. Millay’s frank attitude toward sexuality—along with immortal lines such as “My candle burns at both ends”—solidified her reputation as the quintessential liberated woman of the Jazz Age. In this authoritative volume, Timothy F. Jackson has compiled and annotated a new selection that represents the full range of her published work alongside previously unpublished manuscript excerpts, poems, prose, and correspondence. The poems, appearing as they were printed in their first editions, are complemented by Jackson’s extensive, illuminating notes that draw on archival sources and help situate her work in its historical and literary context. Two introductory essays—one by Jackson and the other by Millay’s literary executor, Holly Peppe—also help critically frame the poet’s work. This deluxe edition will be cherished by readers who continue to study and enjoy the work of this iconic figure.

“Particularly useful to student readers, but also to advanced scholars.”—James Gifford and Margaret Konkol, The Year’s Work in English Studies“Yale University Press’s edition of the Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, superbly edited by Timothy Jackson, and with a brilliant introduction by Millay scholar Holly Peppe, constitutes a significant addition both to our understanding of Twentieth-Century American Poetry as well as to a fuller, more complex and balanced portrait of who the extraordinary poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was and—more importantly—is to readers searching for a more accurate picture of what made Modern Poetry modern. If she has been too often overlooked in the last half century and more, this edition will undoubtedly help restore Millay’s brilliant, witty, and tragic feminine voice to her rightful place among the company of Hart Crane, Frost, Williams, Pound, Eliot and Stevens.”—Paul Mariani, Boston College“Edna St. Vincent Millay is like Robert Frost or Philip Larkin in that her poems would survive even if every professor and professional critic ignored them (as, at times, they have). Her poems are both ancient and modern, comprised of equal parts pain and elation, ravishing music and stark reality.  She can break your heart, or, perhaps more importantly, remind you of the person who once had a heart that could be broken.”—Christian Wiman, author of My Bright Abyss“Many of the poets and academics who once dismissed Edna St. Vincent Millay as minor, and stylistically old fashioned are themselves now unread, forgotten. Millay’s poem are still powerfully alive. As this first rate edition shows.”—Greg Delanty, author of Book Seventeen“Assumptions about Millay’s work are too often based on her early poems or the romantic lyrics. This exceptionally fine selection represents a wide range of Millay’s work from her entire career. Brilliantly and meticulously edited, it offers an illuminating new perspective on Millay’s achievement. Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay celebrates a force of nature whose artistry this elegant annotated edition brings to light.”—Phillis Levin, author of Mr. Memory & Other Poems

Pulitzer Prize–winner Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) was a poet and playwright. Timothy F. Jackson is associate professor of English at Rosemont College. Holly Peppe, literary executor for Edna St. Vincent Millay and editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Millay’s Early Poems, has written and lectured widely about the poet’s life and work.