Henry Van Dyke was born on 10 November 1852 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, then a distinct community on the edge of Philadelphia and now part of the city. He died on 10 April 1933 in Princeton, New Jersey. During the eighty years between those dates, he became one of the most recognizable public literary figures in the United States: a Presbyterian minister, popular preacher, Princeton professor, poet, essayist, noveli…
“Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember only what other people have done for you?”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Wonder, Sorrow
In the grand narrative of American literature, certain figures occupy a peculiar position—neither entirely forgotten nor properly celebrated, their contributions hovering in that twilight zone between obscurity and recognition. Mary Reynolds Aldis, who lived from 1872 to 1949, stands as one such figure: a woman whose drawing rooms hosted the brightest lights of Chicago's literary renaissance, whose one-act plays capt…
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Modernist Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Spirituality