Coffin, Robert P. Tristram (Robert Peter Tristram), 1892-1955
Dates
- Existence: 1892 - 1955
Biography
Robert Peter Tristram Coffin (1892-1955) was a writer, educator, and Pulitzer Prize winning poet born in Brunswick, Maine. Coffin attended Bowdoin College (graduated 1915), Princeton University (A.M. 1916), and Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar (A.B. 1920). Coffin served in the US Army during World War I.
Coffin’s teaching career started at Wells College in 1921 where he was an instructor, then a professor, of English. In 1934, he became a Pierce Professor of English at Bowdoin and during this time also became a visiting lecturer at several colleges and universities. From 1953 to 1954, Coffin was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Athens in Greece.
In 1924, Coffin published his volume of poems, Christchurch, the first of forty books. By 1936 he had won the Pulitzer Prize for Strange Holiness. In addition to teaching and publishing, Coffin traveled the country to lecture and read from his popular poetry.
Sources: Biographical Note, Guide to the Rovert Peter Tristram Coffin Collection (https://library.bowdoin.edu/arch/mss/rptcg.shtml); Robert Coffin, Maine: An Encyclopedia (https://maineanencyclopedia.com/coffin-robert/).
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Eleanor Martin Collection on Robert P. Tristram Coffin
The Eleanor Martin Collection on Robert P. Tristram Coffin contains correspondence from and about American poet, educator, and Pulitzer Prize winner Robert P. T. Coffin. The collection of letters was compiled by Eleanor Martin, a friend of Coffin, and mostly focuses on their relationship and Martin’s position as solicitor and coordinator of Coffin’s lectures in the Midwest region. This collection also includes ephemera and artifacts related to Coffin’s career and spans from 1926 to 1983.