Amy Lowell was born on February 9, 1874, in Brookline, Massachusetts, to a distinguished family. As was common for girls of her class, she never attended college but read as extensively as she could from her father's library. Lowell's father died in 1900, and she took over the family estate, Sevenels, purchasing the house and surrounding gardens from her siblings and learning to manage the various servants. In 1902, she wrote her first poem.

Lowell began writing seriously several years later and was first published in the literary and cultural magazine Atlantic Monthly, in 1910. She published her first book of poetry, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass. in 1912. Two years later, Lowell traveled to England and was stranded in London during the first months of World War I. While there, she met poet Ezra Pound and became involved in the imagist movement.

Lowell published nine books of poetry, four...