Literary History Documentary: Robert Frost was one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. He had four Pulitzers and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature a staggering 31 times. But Frost had been a struggling writer right into his forties. Until, in 1912, he made the bold decision to move his family to London, where he finally found the literary success that had eluded him in America. This is the story of how England made Robert Frost a poet, and how the outbreak of World War I brought him home. The tale of a gamble that changed American literature. Enjoy this historical documentary about American poet Robert Frost’s years in England, 1912-1915. And remind yourself of a poet you know you know… but you don’t quite know…
Secret Bonus Facts for Those Who Actually Read the Descriptions:
- Robert Frost and his family sailed from Boston to the United Kingdom on August 24, 1912, aboard the S.S. Parisian.
- Their voyage took them across the Atlantic to Glasgow, Scotland, where they arrived on September 3, 1912. From there, they traveled by train to London, eventually settling in the town of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire.
- The move to England proved to be a pivotal decision for Frost’s literary aspirations, as it was there that he successfully published his first two collections of poetry, establishing his reputation as a major poet.
You’ve gone too far. There’s nothing interesting this low down… except, since you’re here, a final point: In 1940, Robert Frost bought a 5-acre plot in South Miami, Florida. He called it: Pencil Pines. In her memoir about Frost’s time in Florida, Helen Muir writes, “Frost had called his five acres Pencil Pines because he said he had never made a penny from anything that did not involve the use of a pencil.”