A Boy's Will
Title page to the first American edition (Henry Holt and Company, 1915) | |
| Author | Robert Frost |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | David Nutt |
Publication date | 1913 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| Text | A Boy's Will at Wikisource |
A Boy's Will is a poetry collection by Robert Frost, and is the poet's first commercially published book of poems. The book was first published in 1913 by David Nutt in London, with a dedication to Frost's wife, Elinor. Its first American edition came two years later, in 1915, through Henry Holt and Company.
Like much of Frost's work, the poems in A Boy's Will thematically associate with rural life, nature, philosophy, and individuality, while also alluding to earlier poets including Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, William Shakespeare, and William Wordsworth. Despite the first section of poems having a theme of retreating from society, then, Frost does not retreat from his literary precursors and, instead, tries to find his place among them.