American poet Hilda Doolittle, daughter of a professor of astronomy at Lehigh University and his second wife, was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. When she was nine years old, her father was appointed director of the Flower Astronomical Observatory at the University of Pennsylvania, and the family relocated to Philadelphia.
After graduating from high school, Hilda attended Bryn Mawr College, but due to poor health, she was forced to leave in her second year. In 1911, she traveled to Europe, where she became acquainted with radical writer and poet Ezra Pound and his Imagist movement. Under Pound's influence, she gained recognition as the poet of the movement.
Pound submitted some of her poems to the editor of "Poetry" magazine, which published them in 1913. The same year, she married poet and writer Richard Aldington, who was the editor of "Egoist" magazine at the time. When World War I broke out, Aldington joined the British army, and Hilda took over as editor of the magazine.
After the war, Aldington returned, but the couple eventually divorced. In 1920, she returned to her home country of the United States, staying in California for a few months before returning to Europe. She settled in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, and never remarried after her divorce from Aldington. Hilda Doolittle passed away at the age of 75 in 1961 due to a stroke.
