William Ellery Leonard

William Ellery Leonard (January 25, 1876, in Plainfield, New Jersey – May 2, 1944, in Madison, Wisconsin) was an American poet, playwright, translator, and literary scholar.

William Ellery Channing Leonard was born on the family homestead in Plainfield, New Jersey on January 25, 1876.

His parents, admirers of the transcendentalist movement, named him after William Ellery Channing, a mentor to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Leonard attended his mother's class for five years, studied with his father at home, and did not enter public school until he was nine.

Frustrated that his impoverished parents could not afford college, Leonard took a job out of high school as a door-to-door salesman.

[4] After graduating from Harvard and completing his temporary professorship, Leonard took a job in a small high school in Plainville, Massachusetts.

Over his career Leonard wrote numerous volumes of poetry, the first of which was Sonnets and Poems, a collection regarded as showing emotional intensity as well as psychological depth.

Leonard is also known for his many scholarly works, particularly translations of Aesop, Empedocles, and Lucretius (e.g. De rerum natura) as well as the epic Beowulf.

"[6] Today the William Ellery Leonard House is on the list of Registered Historic Places in Madison, Wisconsin.

Title page to a 1908 copy of "The Fragments of Empedocles," translated by Leonard
Title page to a 1908 copy of "The Fragments of Empedocles," translated by Leonard
William Romaine NewboldDedication page in a 1908 copy of "The Fragments of Empedocles," translated by Leonard. Leonard dedicated the work to friend and colleague William Romaine Newbold
Dedication page in a 1908 copy of "The Fragments of Empedocles," translated by Leonard. Leonard dedicated the work to friend and colleague William Romaine Newbold