[1] Born in Maine in January 1873, Edna Worthley received little education as a child, attending school occasionally, only when her family moved to Kansas in 1884.
[2][3] Returning to Kansas, she taught in a public school for three years before being dismissed because she refused to give up yellow-bound foreign-language books which her superiors believed to be 'wicked', of a possibly pornographic nature.
Underwood had published a book of poetry, The Garden of Desire (1913) but then turned to the writing of, for the most part, historical novels, drawing heavily upon the languages she had learned, the extensive travel she had undertaken, and her thorough grounding in history.
The Latin American Institute of Culture of Buenos Aires awarded her the gold insignia for her Poets of Haiti (1935).
[2][5] Also, her translation of The Spirit of the Andes (1935), by the Peruvian poet Jose Santos Chocano, was dedicated by special permission to Alfonso XIII of Spain.