Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1911 and graduated from Vassar College in 1934. She travelled widely as an adult, living in Paris, Mexico, New York, Florida, and, for more than a decade, Brazil, before returning to the United States. Her work was immediately prized for its distinctive clarity, precision, and depth, and she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, among others. Over time she has come to be acknowledged as one of America's greatest poets. She died in Boston in 1979.

"The virtues of the prose are the virtues of the poems: observation, wit, decorum, a sinuous intelligence adn above all what Randall Jarrell called her 'moral attractiveness'" -- Michael Hoffman "Unhurried, methodical, human, she pronounces a true but merciful verdict on our precarious existence" -- Craig Raine "[Bishop] was also a fine writer of prose...So hats off to the publishers for gathering all her writings in two separate volumes...her cosmopolitan life is reflected in the breadth of her writings, all suffused with curiosity and quiet intelligence" Sunday Telegraph "Taken together [with the Poems: The Centenary Edition], these two volumes make a handsome tribute to a writer who is gradually, quietly being recognized...as one of America's greatest" London Review of Books

Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1911 and graduated from Vassar College in 1934. She travelled widely as an adult, living in Paris, Mexico, New York, Florida, and, for more than a decade, Brazil, before returning to the United States. Her work was immediately prized for its distinctive clarity, precision, and depth, and she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, among others. Over time she has come to be acknowledged as one of America's greatest poets. She died in Boston in 1979.

"The virtues of the prose are the virtues of the poems: observation, wit, decorum, a sinuous intelligence adn above all what Randall Jarrell called her 'moral attractiveness'" -- Michael Hoffman "Unhurried, methodical, human, she pronounces a true but merciful verdict on our precarious existence" -- Craig Raine "[Bishop] was also a fine writer of prose...So hats off to the publishers for gathering all her writings in two separate volumes...her cosmopolitan life is reflected in the breadth of her writings, all suffused with curiosity and quiet intelligence" Sunday Telegraph "Taken together [with the Poems: The Centenary Edition], these two volumes make a handsome tribute to a writer who is gradually, quietly being recognized...as one of America's greatest" London Review of Books