Leonard Bacon letters (MSS-0107)

Biographical/Historical Note

Leonard Bacon was born to Nathaniel Terry Bacon and Helen Hazard Bacon in Syracuse, New York on May 26, 1887. Bacon was a poet and literary critic who was class poet and editor of the Literary Magazine at Yale University, from which he graduated in 1909. Upon graduation, he taught English at the University of California, Berkeley until 1923 when he moved to Peace Dale, Rhode Island to concentrate on his writing. In 1940, he won a Pulitzer Prize in poetry for his work “Sunderland Capture.” Additionally, he was a literary critic for Saturday Review of Literature and Harper’s.

In 1912, Bacon Martha Stringham. The couple had three children: Helen, Alice, and Martha. He died January 1, 1954.