Reissued with a new preface for the centennial.Along with Pound, Eliot, and Joyce, Edward Estlin Cummings is one of the leading American poets who revolutionized literary expression in the twentieth century. He was also a Cubist painter, a champion of the little man, a brilliant conversationalist, a romantic idealist, a famous irrational curmudgeon, and husband to three of the most beautiful women of his time. This critical biography merges these various selves into one fascinating life story, many chapters of which could be mistaken for a great romantic novel. In following Cummings's development as a poet, it also includes a large number of previously unpublished poems and drawings.