Whose Birthday Is It? November 5, 2018

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850)

When her Poems of Passion was published in 1883, Wheeler gained notoriety for writing “immoral” poetry. Her subsequent works showed a marked change in content, focusing on temperance, religion, and sentimental, inspirational verse. Her best known poem is “Solitude,” which earned her five dollars when it was published in an 1883 issue of the New York Sun. It famously opens, “Laugh and the world laughs with you / Weep and you weep alone.” What inspired her to write these lines? More…