William Vaughn Moody was born at Spencer, Indiana, July 1, 1869, and was educated at Harvard. After graduation, he spent the remaining eighteen years of his life in travel and intensive study—he taught, for eight years, at the University of Chicago—his death coming at the very height of his creative power.

The Masque of Judgment, his first work, was published in 1900. A richer and more representative collection appeared the year following; in Poems (1901) Moody effected that mingling of challenging lyricism and spiritual philosophy which becomes more and more insistent. (See Preface.) Throughout his career, and particularly in such lines as the hotly expostulating “On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines” and the majestic, uncompleted “The Death of Eve,” Moody successfully achieves the rare union of poet and preacher. “Gloucester Moors” is an outcry against the few exploiting the many; “The Quarry” and “An Ode in Time of Hesitation” are passionate with prophecy. His last, extended works have an epic quality which, with their too-crowded details and difficult diction, will effectually prevent them from ever becoming popular. But their importance will grow even as Moody’s place in our literature will eventually be a higher one than that which has yet been accorded him.

His prose play The Great Divide (1907) was strikingly successful when produced by Henry Miller. The Faith Healer (1909), another play in prose, because of its more exalted tone, did not win the favor of the theatre-going public. A complete edition of The Poems and Poetic Dramas of William Vaughn Moody was published in 1912 in two volumes.

In the summer of 1909 Moody was stricken with the illness from which he never recovered. He died in October, 1910.