Janet Lewis (1) (1899–1998)

Janet Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her father taught college-level English and she credited him with being the first to teach her the rudiments of good prose and poetic style. Her first ambition was to be a poet. She graduated from the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Poetry Club and a literary circle that included Glenway Wescott, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and her future husband Yvor Winters. She taught at both Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley.
Her first published collection of poems was The Indians in the Woods (1922), inspired by her childhood fascination with Native Americans. Further collections included The Wheel in Midsummer (1927), Janet and Deloss: Poems and Pictures (1990), and Poems Old and New, 1918–1978 (1981). Her debut novel, The Invasion: A Narrative of Events Concerning the Johnston Family of St. Mary’s, was published in 1932. She wrote several historical novels set in Europe, including The Wife of Martin Guerre (1941), The Trial of Soren Qvist (1947), and The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron (1959). She also wrote short fiction, collected in Good-bye, Son, and Other Stories (1946). She wrote six librettos for operas, and several song texts, some in collaboration with composer Alva Henderson.

She married Yvor Winters in 1926, and together they founded Gyroscope, a literary magazine that published from 1929 until 1931.

She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992.