This is the story of a rare sort of American genius, who grew up in grinding poverty in Camden, Maine. Nothing could save the sensitive child but her talent for words, music, and drama, and an inexorable desire to be loved. When she was twenty, her poetry would make her famous; at thirty she would be loved by readers the world over.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was widely considered to be the most seductive woman of her age. Few men could resist her, and many women also fell under her spell. From the publication of her first poems until the scandal over Fatal Interview twenty years later, gossip about the poet's liberated lifestyle prompted speculation about who might be the real subject of her verses.

Using letters, diaries, and journals of the poet and her lovers that have only recently become available, Daniel Mark Epstein tells the astonishing story of the life, dedicated to art and love, that inspired the sublime lyrics of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Daniel Mark Epstein is an award-winning essayist, poet, playwright, translator, biographer, and musician. He's received the Prix de Rome and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been anthologized in several collections of essays and poetry. His books include biographies of Aimee Semple McPherson, Nat King Cole, and seven volumes of poetry. He lives in Baltimore.

“Epstein creates a rendering worthy of the poet's energetic life.” —People magazine

“Epstein is one of the strongest poets now writing in English. He is also a musician and a scholar; and, as [What Lips My Lips Have Kissed] makes clear, an expert biographer.” —Jeffrey Hart, National Review

“Rapturous . . . [Epstein] extols Millay, persuasively, as 'America's foremost love poet.'” —Merle Rubin, The Wall Street Journal