Edna St. Vincent Millay: The Girl Who Burned at Both Ends

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first woman in history to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry—yet that prize is the smallest thing in her story. She wrote four lines about a candle burning at both ends, and half of America learned them by heart, but few ever knew the unvarnished life of the woman who held the flame. At 19, she was secretly betrothed to a man who did not exist. At 26, she conquered Greenwich Village, telling her suitors plainly, "I shall have many lovers"—and they proposed anyway. She invented a second self under her great-grandmother’s name to write satire for money so the poet could never be bought. And when the only manuscript of her biggest book burned in a hotel fire, she rewrote the entire volume from memory. This is the real, unvarnished story of America's most rebellious literary genius: Edna St. Vincent Millay. 0:00 The Candle at Both Ends (Cold Open) 3:31 Born Inside the Bells: A Name from a Shipwreck 11:32 A Child Alone With Shakespeare 14:03 Across the Cranberry Swamp: The Father Leaves 18:49 The Four Women Fortress: Surviving Millville 25:50 "But My Name Is Vincent" 28:50 The Invented Fiancé of Washington Street 33:46 Renascence and the Scandal of The Lyric Year 41:07 The Whitehall Parlor: A Woman in the Audience 46:47 Vassar College & The Commencement Rebellion 56:06 Greenwich Village & The Choir Boys of Hell 1:04:41 First Fig: Four Lines That Ate a Generation 1:07:21 The Double Life: Nancy Boyd & Vanity Fair 1:15:22 Paris, Albania, and the European Exile 1:22:48 Dorset: What Grew on the Chalk Downs 1:26:15 The 1923 Climax: A Pulitzer & A Hospital Wedding 1:32:34 "I Shall Be Immortal" Join this channel to get access to perks:    / @mythicmindscape21   SOURCES & FURTHER READING Biographies Milford, Nancy. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Random House, 2001. Epstein, Daniel Mark. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2001. Gould, Jean. The Poet and Her Book: A Biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1969. Sheean, Vincent. The Indigo Bunting: A Memoir of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951. Shafter, Toby. Edna St. Vincent Millay: America's Best-Loved Poet. New York: Julian Messner, 1957. By Millay — Poetry Renascence, and Other Poems. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1917. A Few Figs from Thistles. New York: Frank Shay, 1920. Second April. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921. The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver. New York: Frank Shay, 1922. The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1923. [Pulitzer Prize, 1923] The Buck in the Snow, and Other Poems. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928. Fatal Interview: Sonnets. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1931. Wine from These Grapes. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1934. Conversation at Midnight. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937. Huntsman, What Quarry? New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939. Make Bright the Arrows: 1940 Notebook. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1940. Mine the Harvest: A Collection of New Poems. Edited by Norma Millay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954. [posthumous] By Millay — Plays & Translations Aria da Capo. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921. The Lamp and the Bell. New York: Frank Shay, 1921. The King's Henchman: A Play in Three Acts. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927. The Princess Marries the Page: A Play in One Act. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932. Baudelaire, Charles. Flowers of Evil. Translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay and George Dillon. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936. Collected Editions Collected Sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941. Collected Lyrics of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943. Collected Poems. Edited by Norma Millay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956. Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay: An Annotated Edition. Edited by Timothy F. Jackson, with an introduction by Holly Peppe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. Edna St. Vincent Millay: Selected Poems. Edited by J. D. McClatchy. American Poets Project #1. New York: Library of America, 2003. Edna St. Vincent Millay: Early Poems. Edited by Holly Peppe. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Letters & Diaries Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Edited by Allan Ross Macdougall, in cooperation with Norma Millay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952. Rapture and Melancholy: The Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Edited by Daniel Mark Epstein. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022. Bibliographic & Reference Yost, Karl. A Bibliography of the Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937. Nierman, Judith. Edna St. Vincent Millay: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977. Archives The Edna St. Vincent Millay Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. #EdnaStVincentMillay #Poetry #womenwriters