Man with the Blue Guitar, The

Wallace James Stevens was born on October 2nd, 1879 in Reading, Pennsylvania. His father, a lawyer, sent Wallace to Harvard as a non-degree special student, after which he moved to New York City and worked briefly as a journalist. From there he attended New York Law School and graduated in 1903. On a trip home to Reading in 1904 Stevens met Elsie Viola Kachel, a saleswoman, milliner, and stenographer. After working for several New York law firms he was hired in January 1908, as a lawyer for the American Bonding Company. After a 6 year courtship Wallace and Elsie married in 1909 over the objections of his parents. For Wallace it was a seismic event; he never spoke to his father again. By 1914 Wallace had become the vice-president of the New York office of the Equitable Surety Company of St. Louis, Missouri. In 1916, he joined Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company and they moved to Hartford. His work was full-time and time for his poetry writing was in short supply. From January 1922 made several business several visits to Key West, Florida. "The place is a paradise," he wrote to Elsie, "midsummer weather, the sky brilliantly clear and intensely blue, the sea blue and green beyond what you have ever seen." In 1923 ‘Harmonium’ was published. At last, at age 38, he was an overnight success. His career was not prodigious in quantity but its quality was exceptional. In March 1955 Wallace underwent various medical tests and an operation which resulted in a diagnosis of stomach cancer. He travelled in early June to receive honorary Doctorates at Hartford and Yale. Wallace was readmitted on July 21st to St. Francis Hospital where his condition deteriorated. Wallace Stevens died on the 2nd August 1955 at the age of 75. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.