Editing Edgar Lee Masters (section)

==Life and career==
He was born in [[Garnett, Kansas]], to attorney Hardin Wallace Masters and Emma Jerusha Dexter.<ref>[http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/masters/life.htm Profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170412020400/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/masters/life.htm |date=April 12, 2017 }}, illinois.edu. Retrieved December 13, 2015.</ref> His father had briefly moved to set up a law practice, then soon moved back to his paternal grandparents' farm near [[Petersburg, Illinois|Petersburg]] in [[Menard County, Illinois]]. In 1880 they moved to [[Lewistown, Illinois]], where he attended high school and had his first publication in the ''[[Chicago Daily News]]''. The culture around Lewistown, in addition to the town's cemetery at [[Oak Hill Cemetery (Lewistown, Illinois)|Oak Hill]] and the nearby [[Spoon River]], were the inspirations for many of his works, most notably ''[[Spoon River Anthology]]'', his most famous and acclaimed work.<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/84/22.html Profile], bartleby.com. Retrieved December 13, 2015.</ref>

He attended Knox Academy in 1889–1890, a now defunct preparatory program run by [[Knox College (Illinois)|Knox College]], but was forced to leave by his family's inability to finance his education.<ref name=poets.org>{{cite web|url=http://www.poets.org/elmas|title=Edgar Lee Masters profile, ibid|publisher=Poets.org|access-date=10 September 2013}}</ref>
  
After working in his father's law office, he was [[Admission to the bar|admitted]] to the Illinois bar and moved to Chicago, where he established a law partnership in 1893 with the law firm of Kickham Scanlan. He married twice. In 1898 he married Helen M. Jenkins, the daughter of Robert Edwin Jenkins, a lawyer in Chicago, and had three children. From 1903 to 1911, Masters was partners in the firm of Darrow, Masters and Wilson with [[Clarence Darrow]], the famous trial lawyer, and [[Francis S. Wilson]], who later served as Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Association |first=American Bar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C_SGU6gJEgIC&dq=%22darrow%2C+masters+and+wilson%22&pg=PA1084 |title=ABA Journal |date=July 1979 |publisher=American Bar Association |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Stone |first=Irving |url=http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.462663 |title=Darrow For The Defence |date=1919}}</ref> In 1911 he started his own law firm, despite three years of unrest (1908–1911) caused by extramarital affairs and an argument with Darrow. {{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

Two of his children followed him with literary careers. His daughter [[Marcia Masters]] pursued poetry, while his son [[Hilary Masters]] became a novelist. Hilary and his half-brother Hardin wrote a memoir of their father.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jackmasters.net/mastelm.html|title=Jack Masters profile|publisher=Jackmasters.net|access-date=10 September 2013}}</ref>

Masters died in poverty at a nursing home on March 5, 1950, in [[Melrose Park, Pennsylvania]], age 81.<ref name=Ehrlich209>Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth. ''The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982: p. 206; {{ISBN|0-19-503186-5}}</ref> He is buried in Oakland cemetery in Petersburg, Illinois. His [[epitaph]] includes his poem, "To-morrow is My Birthday" from ''Toward the Gulf'' (1918):

<blockquote><poem>
"Good friends, let's to the fields ...
After a little walk, and by your pardon,
I think I'll sleep. There is no sweeter thing,
Nor fate more blessed than to sleep.

I am a dream out of a blessed sleep –
Let's walk, and hear the lark."
</poem></blockquote>

===Family history===
Edgar's father was Hardin Wallace Masters, whose father was Squire Davis Masters, whose father was Thomas Masters, whose father was Hillery Masters, the son of Robert Masters (born c. 1715, [[Prince George's County, Maryland]], the son of William W. Masters and wife Mary Veatch Masters). Edgar Lee Masters wrote in his autobiography, ''Across Spoon River'' (1936), that his ancestor Hillery Masters was the son of "Knotteley" Masters, but family genealogies show that Hillery and Notley Masters were, in fact, brothers.<ref>Charles Burgess, "The Maryland-Carolina Ancestry of Edgar Lee Masters", ''The Great Lakes Review'', vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall 1982-Spring 1983), pp. 51–80.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>