18c Edna St. Vincent Millay stamp

In 1923, Edna St. Vincent Millay became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Born in Rockland, Maine, she began writing poetry early, and one of her poems, 'Renascence,' won a scholarship for Millay to Vassar College. Many of her poems celebrated the freedom of the bohemian lifestyle she led in New York City and Europe, and she mastered the traditional sonnet form. In the late 1930s, as the world lurched toward war, she wrote many poems decrying fascism and urging people and governments to rise above it.

An 18-cent commemorative stamp honoring Edna St. Vincent Millay was issued July 10, 1981, in Austerlitz, New York, where Ms. Millay's farmstead, Steepletop, is located. Both she and her husband, Eugen Boissevain, are buried at Steepletop.

The stamp was designed by Glenora Richards of New Canaan, Connecticut, and modeled by Frank J. Waslick. Printed in the offset/intaglio process, the stamp was issued in panes of fifty stamps.

Reference: Postal Bulletin (June 11, 1981).

Scott Catalogue USA: 1926

Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

Museum ID: 1994.2027.432