Robert Frost is universally identified with New England, his home for many years and the setting for much of his poetry. However, he was born in San Francisco, California, on March 26, 1874, and did not move to New England until after the death of his father in 1885 when his mother resettled the family to Lawrence, Massachusetts. There, Frost attended Lawrence High School where he was the co-valedictorian with his eventual wife, Elinor.

Frost was admitted to Harvard but did not have the money to go to school there. He briefly went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and worked at a variety of teaching and other jobs. He married Elinor in 1895 and began attending Harvard as a special student, but he left in 1899 to take up farming to support his family.

Frost published a few poems in 1894, and between 1899 and 1912, he wrote articles and poems and worked...