Ella Wheeler Wilcox was born in Johnston Center, Wisconsin, in 1855 and was educated at the University of Wisconsin. She began to write poetry while a young girl and her first verses appeared in newspapers. In 1884 she married Robert M. Wilcox, a merchant of New York, and, for many years, she made her residence in that city. At the time of her death, in 1919, her home was "The Bungalow," Short Beach, Connecticut. She spent a number of months traveling among American army camps in France, giving "readings" before enthusiastic audiences of soldiers. The work was arduous and contributed to the collapse that resulted in her death.
During many years, verses flowed freely -- almost too easily, some said -- from Mrs. Wilcox's pen. She enjoyed popularity not only in the United States but in England. Her poems were gathered and published in volumes at different times -- more than twenty in number. Some years ago, that final sign-token of popular approval -- a Wilcox "Birthday Book" -- was issued, containing a selection of her poems.
Mrs. Wilcox's work calls for special consideration in any review of
American women poets because she was a distinctive
type of writer, who did a kind of work that was peculiarly individual,
and who reached an enormous public with her messages. For true poetic quality
we look chiefly to the work of her later life. Her last book, 'Sonnets
of Sorrow and Triumph," shows her at her best. Edward N. Teall, writing
in The New York Sun, says: "The 'sonnet sequence' in good hands
is very high art, and, less capably
managed, it can get pretty low. Ella Wheeler Wilcox's 'Sonnets of Sorrow'
attain a lofty level -- the paradox is harmless -- in plumbing the depths
of a heart's desire."
In this book the author gave eloquent expression to real, vital things.
Critical readers have. for years, noted -- and sometimes with severity
-- certain sentimental defects characteristic of Mrs. Wilcox's verse. She
often assumed, in verse, the forlorn, heart-torn pose, and she, too frequently,
flashed the showy phrase that caught the wind of the many, but "made the
judicious grieve." But, in her later work -- and especially in the Sonnets
of Sorrow and Triumph" -- she rose to a higher plane, and her lines display
truly
noble feeling and fine poetic phraseology.