About the Author

ARCHIBALD MACLEISH (1892-1982) attended Yale University and served in World War I. Later, he went to Harvard Law School and practiced law in Boston for a few years until he gave it up and moved to Paris with his wife and children to devote all his time to writing poetry. He returned to the United States to research the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and the result, Conquistador (1932), won him a Pulitzer Prize. From 1920-1939, he was a member of the editorial board of Fortune magazine and he served as Librarian of Congress from 1929 to 1944. MacLeish's Collected Poems (1952) won a Pulitzer Prize and his poetic drama, J.B.: A Play in Verse, based on the Book of Job, was a Broadway success in 1957 winning a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award.