Ogden Nash (1902-1971) was arguably one of the most commercially successful English-language poets of the twentieth century.

Nash's verse skewered the pretensions of the modern middle class existence and gave voice to the inner seethings of the average, besieged-by-life individual--and he did it with a cunning, swift humor. Though sometimes the object of criticism from literary purists, Nash's talent for composing verse using the common American vernacular earned him great success over a four-decade period.

Nash was born Frediric Ogden Nash in Rye, New York, to Edmund Strudwick and Mattie (Chenault) Nash in 1902. His father was in the import-export business, but the Nash family's ancestry was a distinguished American blueblood one. Their roots in North Carolina stretched back to the American Revolutionary era, and the city of Nashville, Tennessee, was named in honor of another forbearer. Nash himself grew up in various East Coast communities, and also lived...