[4] Robinson's early struggles led many of his poems to have a dark pessimism and his stories to deal with "an American dream gone awry.

[6] The middle brother, Herman, a handsome and charismatic man, married the woman Edwin loved, Emma Löehen Shepherd.

[7] Emma thought highly of Edwin and encouraged his poetry,[7] but he was deemed too young to be in realistic competition for her hand, which didn't keep him from being agitated deeply by witnessing what he considered her being deceived by Herman's charm and choosing shallowness over depth.

[6] The marriage was a great blow to Edwin's pride, and during the wedding ceremony, on February 12, 1890, the despondent poet stayed home and wrote a poem of protest, "Cortège", the title of which refers to the train that took the newly married couple out of town to their new life in St. Louis, Missouri.

[8] In 1891, at the age of 21, Robinson entered Harvard University as a special student where he took classes in English, French, and Shakespeare; as well as one on Anglo-Saxon that he later dropped.

"[12] He was even invited to meet with the editors, but when he returned, he complained to his friend Mowry Saben, "I sat there among them, unable to say a word.

Though short, Robinson's stay in Cambridge included some of his most cherished experiences, and there he made his most lasting friendships.

He tried farming and developed a close relationship with his sister-in-law Emma Robinson, who after her husband Herman's death, moved back to Gardiner with her children.

Its readers included President Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit, who had received a copy from his teacher, who happened to be a friend of Robinson.

[20] According to Edmund Morris, author of Theodore Rex, a tacit condition of his employment was that, in exchange for his desk and two thousand dollars a year, he should work "with a view to helping American letters", rather than the receipts of the United States Treasury.

[27] During the last 20 years of his life he became a regular summer resident at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where several women made him the object of their devoted attention.

[27] Robinson and artist Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones visited MacDowell at the same times over a cumulative total of ten years.

[4] In October of the same year, a monument was erected in Gardiner Common through the efforts of Robinson's friend and mentor Laura E. Richards, who raised the money for the monument from across the country; the Boston architect Henry R. Shepley provided the design, Richards wrote the inscription and Robinson’s biographer, Herman Hagedorn, was the keynote speaker.