Hilda Doolittle, or H.D. as she preferred to be called, was born on September 10, 1886 in Pennsylvania. She attended Bryn Mawr College where she met Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound. She eventually became engaged to Pound but her father disapproved and they broke up.
H.D. moved to London in 1911 and married Richard Aldington in 1913. Even though the two remained married for 27 years, they became estranged in 1915. She lived with Bryher for several years; the two reportedly shared male lovers. The two were to remain friends for the rest of H.D.’s life. In 1919, H.D. had a child with poet Cecil Gray.
Hilda Doolittle published her first poetry as a teenager in a local church paper in Pennsylvania. In 1913, she published her first poems as an adult in Poetry. She established her reputation as a poet with help from Ezra Pound who remained a friend. Her first novel, Palimpset was published in 1921. H.D. went on to write several collections of poetry, several novels, and a number of non-fiction books including a study of Sigmund Freud.
In her life, Hilda Doolittle encountered some of the greatest men and women of her day. She became a friend of Ezra Pound, a close friend of D.H. Lawrence, and a patient of Sigmund Freud. She reportedly saw Sigmund Freud to help her to understand her bisexuality. She was acquainted with those writers considered to be the Lost Generation, and a part of a group called Academy of Women which included Mina Loy, Bryher, and Natalie Barney.
Hilda Doolittle died on September 27, 1961 after suffering a stroke; Bryher was there to help put her papers in order.
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