The poet Elinor Wylie was born Elinor Morton Hoyt on September 7, 1885 in Somerville, New Jersy, USA.
From 1893-1897 she attedded Miss Baldwin's School for Girls near Bryn Mawr. Her family moved to Washington, D.C., where her father was eventually appointed Counsellor of the State Department by Theodore Roosevelt. She attended Holton-Arms School.
In December, 1906 she married Phillip Hichborn. The following year she gave birth to a son which they named Phillip III. Her husband suffered from acute mental illness.
In 1908 she met a Washington socialite named Horace Wylie. They eloped on a boat from Canada to England two years later. They remained in England because his previous wife refused to grant a divorce. They changed their surname to Waring and lived in a cottage in Bournemouth.
In 1912 her first husband committed suicide and her collection of poetry called Incidental Numbers was privately printed. In the spring of 1915 she and Horace returned to the US and once his divorce was final they married. A year later they moved to Washington. Four of her poems were published in the April 1920 issue of Poetry.
In 1921 the poet William Rose Benét helped her publish Nets to Catch the Wind. The following year she accepted an invitation to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where she worked on her novel, Jennifer Lorn: A Sedate Extravaganza which was published shortly before she was appointed the literary editor of Vanity Fair. This same year she divorced Wylie and married Benét, and published a collection of poetry called Black Armor.
In 1924 she moved to New Canaan, Conneticut. The following year she published a novel called Venetian glass Nephew. The year after that she published a novel called Mr. Hodge and Mr. Hazard as well as a collection of poetry called Trivial Breath, before dieing of a stroke. Later that year Angels and Earthy Creatures was published.