FROST, ROBERT

born March 26, 1874, San Francisco, California, U.S. died January 29, 1963, Boston, Massachusetts Robert Frost, 1954. in full Robert Lee Frost American poet who was much admired for his depictions of the rural life of New England, his command of American colloquial speech, and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations. Philip L. Gerber Additional reading Selected Letters of Robert Frost, ed. by Lawrance Thompson (1965); and The Letters of Robert Frost to Louis Untermeyer, ed. by Louis Untermeyer (1963), offer good coverage of his correspondence. Frank Lentricchia and Melissa Christensen Lentricchia, Robert Frost: A Bibliography, 19131974 (1976), gives reliable data concerning the publication of Frost's works. The most complete biography is Lawrance Thompson, Robert Frost, 3 vol., vol. 3 coauthored with R.H. Winnick (196676). A fine early biography is Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, Robert Frost: Trial by Existence (1960). William H. Pritchard, Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered, 2nd ed. (1993), is a provocative revisionist biography. Philip L. Gerber, Robert Frost, rev. ed. (1982), provides a comprehensive introduction to the life and works. Elaine Barry (compiler), Robert Frost on Writing (1973), collects letters, prefaces, reviews, lectures, and interviews in which Frost offers ideas concerning the composition and purpose of poetry. George W. Nitchie, Human Values in the Poetry of Robert Frost (1960); and Reuben A. Brower, The Poetry of Robert Frost (1963), are excellent early critical studies. Richard Poirier, Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing (1977, reissued with a new afterword, 1990); and Judith Oster, Toward Robert Frost: The Reader and the Poet (1991), stand out among later studies. Norman N. Holland, The Brain of Robert Frost (1988), is a cognitive approach informed by psychological insights and exploring the working of the human mind through a close examination of Frost's poems. Edwin H. Cady and Louis J. Budd (eds.), On Frost (1991), provides an excellent introduction to critical reviews on Frost written by important critics between 1937 and 1990.