Editing Elizabeth Bishop (section)

==Early life==
Bishop, an only child, was born in [[Worcester, Massachusetts]], to William Thomas and Gertrude May (Bulmer) Bishop. After her father, a successful builder, died when she was eight months old, Bishop's mother became mentally ill and was institutionalized in 1916. (Bishop would later write about the time of her mother's struggles in her short story "In the Village".)<ref Name="ParisR">[http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3229/the-art-of-poetry-no-27-elizabeth-bishop "Elizabeth Bishop, The Art of Poetry No. 27"] Interview in ''The Paris Review'' Summer 1981 No. 80</ref> Effectively orphaned during early childhood, she lived with her maternal grandparents on a farm in [[Great Village, Nova Scotia]], a period she referred to in her writing. Bishop's mother remained in an asylum until her death in 1934, and the two were never reunited.<ref>{{cite web | title = Elizabeth Bishop | work = Worcester Area Writers | publisher = Worcester Polytechnic Institute | url = http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Archives/WAuthors/bishop/bio.html | access-date = April 25, 2008 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080905051140/http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Archives/WAuthors/bishop/bio.html | archive-date = September 5, 2008 | df = mdy-all }}</ref>

Later in childhood, Bishop's paternal family gained custody. She was removed from the care of her grandparents and moved in with her father's wealthier family in Worcester, Massachusetts. However, Bishop was unhappy there, and her separation from her maternal grandparents made her lonely. 

While she was living in Worcester, she developed chronic asthma, from which she suffered for the rest of her life.<ref name="ParisR" /> Her time in Worcester is briefly chronicled in her poem "In the Waiting Room". In 1918, her grandparents, realizing that Bishop was unhappy living with them, sent her to live with her mother's eldest sister, Maude Bulmer Shepherdson, and her husband George. 

The Bishops paid Maude to house and educate their granddaughter. The Shepherdsons lived in a [[tenement]] in an impoverished [[Revere, Massachusetts]], neighborhood populated mostly by Irish and Italian immigrants. The family later moved to better circumstances in [[Saugus, Massachusetts|Cliftondale, Massachusetts]]. It was Bishop's aunt who introduced her to the works of Victorian writers, including [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]], [[Thomas Carlyle]], [[Robert Browning]], and [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]].<ref name="Millier">{{cite book |last=Millier |first=Brett C. |year=1995 |title=Elizabeth Bishop: Life and the Memory of It |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWdngGZv3cYC&pg=PA29 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520203457}}</ref>

[[File:Vassarion board, 1934.jpg|thumb|right|Bishop ''(bottom center)'' in 1934 with other members of Vassar's yearbook, the ''Vassarion'', of which she was editor-in-chief|alt=Four women stand behind three seated women, all facing the camera.]]

Bishop was very ill as a child and, as a result, received very little formal schooling until she attended [[Saugus High School (Massachusetts)|Saugus High School]] for her freshman year. She was accepted to the [[Walnut Hill School]] in [[Natick, Massachusetts]], for her sophomore year but was behind on her [[vaccinations]] and not allowed to attend. Instead she spent the year at the [[Shore Country Day School]] in [[Beverly, Massachusetts]].<ref name=Millier /> Bishop then boarded at the Walnut Hill School, where she studied music.<ref Name="ParisR"/> At Shore Country Day, her first poems were published in a student magazine by her friend Frani Blough.<ref>{{cite web| title = Elizabeth Bishop| publisher = Walnut Hill School| url = http://www.walnuthillarts.org/creative_writing/elizabeth_bishop.html| access-date = April 25, 2008| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080509144238/http://www.walnuthillarts.org/creative_writing/elizabeth_bishop.html| archive-date=May 9, 2008| df = mdy-all}}</ref>   

Bishop entered [[Vassar College]] in Poughkeepsie, New York, in the autumn of 1929, planning to study music in order to become a composer. She gave up music because of her terror of performing, and switched her major to English, taking courses in 16th- and 17th-century literature.<ref name="ParisR" /> Bishop published her work in her senior year in ''The Magazine'', a California publication.<ref name="ParisR" /> 

In 1933, she co-founded ''Con Spirito'', a rebel [[literary magazine]] at Vassar, with writer [[Mary McCarthy (author)|Mary McCarthy]], Margaret Miller, and the sisters Eunice and [[Eleanor Clark]].<ref>{{cite web | title = Elizabeth Bishop, American Poet | department = Elizabeth Bishop Society | publisher = Vassar College | url = http://projects.vassar.edu/bishop/ | access-date = April 25, 2008 }}</ref> Bishop graduated from Vassar with a bachelor's degree in 1934.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/elizabeth-bishop |title=Elizabeth Bishop – Poet}}</ref>