Robinson Jeffers Chronology
This Chronology is excerpted and modified from a longer chronology issued by The Jeffers Studies Homepage at Embry-Riddle University @ www.jeffers.org -- See below for more information.
1887
Born 10 January at Allegheny (Pittsburgh), PA
Father: William Hamilton (49) (1838-1914)
Mother: Annie Robinson Tuttle (27) (1860-1921)
Married 30 April 1885
1891
European tour with parents
Kindergarten in Zurich
1892
Second tour
Kinbdergarten in Lucerne
1893
"Twin Hollows" home in Zwickley
Visits Chicago World's Fair
13 October, brother Hamilton born
1894
Methodist Summer Camp: swimming, music
First lessons in Latin: headaches, unhappiness, pedantic speech,
gifted
1896
School: Park Institute
Reads Quo Vadis by Sienkewitz
1897
Pittsburgh Academy
1898
Leipzig Day School for 6 months
Stern teachers
1899
School at Geneva (1 year)
Hiked and swam alone, dubbed "Little Spartan"
Separated
1900
Boarding school (Chateau de Vidy) at Lausanne (1 year)
1901
(14 years old) School (the Pension) at Geneva
Book of D J Rossetti poetry, gift of father
Fall: School (Villaa Erika) in Zurich
1902
Return to USA
Begins at University of West Pennsylvania (University of
Pittsburgh)
1903
Move to Long Beach, California, for father's health
Move to Highland Park, California
Junior at Occidental College (Presbyterian)
1903-1907
Publishes 13 poems
1905
Graduates at 18 years
Enters USC
Meets Una Kuster (b.1 September 1984) in Faust class
Old English seminar from Dr. Dixon, expert on Scottish ballads
Dandy in dress
1907
Enters USC Medical School
Sigma Phi Fraternity
1908
21 years
Una grad student at USC, grad in Psychology
Special Assistant to Dr. Lyman Stookey
Taught Physiology at USC Dental College
1909
Una's MA thesis on Mysticism, visits Jeffers at Hermosa
Beach
Her phone code name "Theodosia"
RJ swimmer, runner, wrestler
1910
Teddie Kuster discovers Una and RJ spent night on Mt.
Lowe
September: RJ enrolls at U of Washington school of Forestry
1911
Summer: returns to Los Angeles
Meets Una by chance
1912
Una abroad at husband's urging (5 months)
Uncontested divorce but headlines in LA paper
RJ receives Legacy of $9,500 from cousin of maternal grandfather
December, publishes Flagons and Apples (Grafton
Publishing Company, LA)
1913
Una moves to Berkeley for graduate work in education
Marriage to Una Call Kustler, August 2 at Tacoma, Washington
Rent a house in La Jolla
1914
LaJolla
They plan living in Lyme Regis on south coast of England
Daughter Maev born 5 May and dies the next day
September: moves to Carmel, California
Father dies December 20
Leaves annuity for $200/month; has $1,000 from John Robinson, his
namesake
1916
War years terrible
9 November twins born, Donnan and Garth
Macmillan published his "Californians"
1918
They rent a log cabin
Drive old Ford
Much reading, few friends
1919
Buy land for Tor House on Mission Point, Carmel
Start construction August 15
1921
Begins Hawk Tower
Una in hospital
Death of mother
1922
Una's hysterectomy
Una sends RJ's poems to New York through a friend
George Sterling friendship begins
Writes "Tamar" as Eliot publishes "The Waste
Land"
1924
Publishes Tamar and Other Poems New York: Peter
Boyle
1925
RJ 38 years
Finishes tower
"Discovered" by James Rorty, editor of "New
Masses"
Boni & Liveright publish Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other
Poems
1926
George Sterling's "Robinson Jeffers: The Man and
the Artist" by Boni & Liveright
1927
Reading Stevenson, Galsworthy to sons
Sandburg visits
Publishes The Woman at Point Sur (Boni & Liveright)
1928
More friends
Poems printed at Book Club of California
Cawdor and Other Poems (Horace Liveright)
1929
Trip to Ireland (June-December), gift of Albert Bender
$500 for "Cawdor" Ms
Motor 4.000 miles
Then Scotland, England
Miss meeting Yeats
Visit George Moore estate, Virginia Woolf
Lake District: Bronte Home, Wordsworth cottage, Stonehenge,
Iverness
Dear Judas and Other Poems (Horace Liveright)
Jeffer's Noh play and narrative of "The Loving
Shepherdess"
Louis Adamics' chapbook "Robinson Jeffers: A Portrait"
1930
First summer at Taos, New Mexico, with Mabel Dodge
Luhan. Summer trips follow in 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, and 1938.
Children in 7th grade at Sunset school
1931
Expand house with dining room between house and garage
Publication of Descent to the Dead, his Irish poems by
Random House
1932
"The Tower Beyond Tragedy" staged at Berkeley
Demand for poems in magazines
Time magazine features Jeffers' portrait on its cover 4 April for
Thurso's Landing and Other Poems (Liveright)
S.S. Alberts A Bibliography of the Works of Robinson Jeffers
at Random House
Lawrence Clark Powell publishes first doctoral dissertation on
Jeffers at Dijon
Mabel Luhan publishes her Lorenzo in Taos at Alfred
Knopf as a letter to Robinson Jeffers explaining her experience
of D.H. Lawrence
1933
Change of publishers from Liveright to Random House
Give Your Heart to the Hawks and Other Poems (Randon
House)
1934
RJ 47, Una 48, twins 18
Trip to New Mexico and Grand Canyon
1935
Donnan and Garth at Salinas Junior college
Una has operation
Random House issues Solstice and Other Poems
1936
Twins at International House, UC Berkeley
Book of the Month Club Award fro Solstice and Other Poems
Taos in June
1937
Awarded Doctor of Literature by Occidental College
Trip to Ireland (June-October)
National Institute of Arts and Letters elects Jeffers to
membership
Such Counsels You Gave to Me and Other Poems (Random
House)
1938
Brother Hamilton flies Jeffers in Stearman
biplane to Death Valley
Taos catastrophe: Una's attempted suicide
December publication of The Selected Poetry by Random
House
1939
Edith Greenan publishes Of Una Jeffers
1940
Jeffers elected to Honorary Phi Beta Kappa membership at
USC
1941
"Tower Beyond Tragedy" staged in Carmel with
Judith Anderson playing the lead, Clytemnestra. John Gassner
directs.
Lecture tour: Utah, Kansas City, Butler, Buffalo, Columbia,
Harvard, U Pittsburgh
RJ plane-spotter
Una in Red Cross
Phone installed
Be Angry at the Sun and Other Poems
1945
Induction into American Academy of Arts & Letters
1946
Medea, adapted by RJ from Euripides, published
by Random House
1947
"Dear Judas" closes in Main, unsuccessful
Michael Meyerberg production in New York. Play banned in Boston.
National Theater stages "Medea" with Dame Judith
Anderson in the lead.
1948
Random House publishes The Double Axe and Other
Poems
Severe pleurisy in Ireland (June)
Adapting Schiller's play "Mary Stuart" with alternate
parts on alternate nights for Judith Anderson
1949
Una suffering much pain from "sciatica"
Treated for cancer at UC hospital, San Francisco
1950
Una dies September 1
American National Theatre and Academy opens"The Tower Beyond
Tragedy" with Dame Judith Anderson as Clytemnestra
1951
Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize for poems in Poetry
Magazine
1952
Grabhorn Press publishes Hungerfield
1954
Random House publishes Hungerfield & Other Poems
Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.) produces "The Cretan
Woman"
Jeffers edit's Una's diaries, Visits To Ireland, printed
by Ward Ritchie Press
1955
Borestone Mountain Poetry Award for Hungerfield
Stanford University produces "The Cretan Woman"
1956
The Book Club of California publishes Themes in My Poems
from his 1941 lecture at the Library of Congress
Last trip to Ireland
The Loving Shepherdess published by Merle Armitage and
Ward Ritchie Press illustrated by Jean Kellogg
1958
Receives award from Academy of American Poets
1961
Shelly Memorial Award by the National Poetry Society
1962
Jeffers dies (age 75) in his sleep in the bed by the window at
Tor House
Consult the Jeffers Studies web site for continuation of the chronology to the present. The Jeffers Studies page of the World Wide Web [www.jeffers.org] offers a rich menu: (1) current JS articles published electronically and anticipating inclusion in the JS annual issue, (2) an archive of JS past issue articles, (3) JS reviews, (4) a bibliography of works by Jeffers, (5) a bibliography of biographic and critical works on the poet, (6) a Jeffers chronology, (7) a biographic sketch, (8) an ongoing year by year bibliography of pertinent articles, chapters, and books, (9) links to cognate Web sites, including the entire 1353 pages of A Literary History of the American West (Fort Worth: Texas Christian U P, 1987) which, under Part 2: “Many Wests—Far West,” has an 18 page chapter on Jeffers, and (10) the 60-page index to issues 1-100 (1962-1996) of the Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, the previous “Journal of Record” for Jeffers studies. The Web Site also features a Web page on the Robinson Jeffers Association, RJA’s call for papers, an archive of past RJA conferences, announcements of activity such as the annual essay contest, and a forum for discussion. Upon its appearance in Jeffers Studies 3.3 (in June 2000) a 50-year, 70-page Jeffers bibliography, 1950-1999, will also be available there.
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