H. D. (1886–1961)

Hilda Doolittle (known by her initials H.D.) was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As a young woman she began lifelong friendships with poets Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound. She attended Bryn Mawr College, but dropped out and went to England in 1911. Pound was there before her and introduced her to London's literary circles. She met Richard Aldington, a novelist and biographer, whom she married in 1913, and the couple went to live in France. H.D. loved ancient Greece, and the classical influence is evident in her works. During this time, she traveled through Europe and visited Greece for the first time. Her first published poems appeared in the journal Poetry in 1913 and then in the English Review, the Transatlantic Review, and the Egoist. H.D. met Annie Winifred Ellerman, known as Bryher, in 1918, and their friendship blossomed into love. They became lifelong companions. Together they went to Paris, where they befriended many in the expatriate literary community such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Djuna Barnes. H.D. appeared in a few avant garde films made by Bryher's company POOL Productions, and lived with her daughter Perdita together with Bryher and her husbands. She entered psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud in Vienna and later wrote "Tribute to Freud" as a fictionalized memoir of this time. She and Bryher left Austria for London at the start of World War II. H.D. became very interested in spiritualism, and her poetry began to explore new ideas beyond her former dedication to Imagism. She wrote prolifically in the 1950s and received many awards before her death in 1961.