Robert Frost was one of America’s best known and most honored serious writers. But his fame came late in his life. He was born in San Francisco, California in 1874. He lived in California during his early childhood. He was named after the chief Southern general( 将军 ) in America's Civil War. The general's name was Robert Edward Lee. The poet was named Robert Lee Frost, because his father wanted to honor the general. Someone once asked another American writer, Ernest Hemingway, how to become a writer. The best thing, he said, was to have an unhappy childhood. If this is true, Robert Frost’s childhood was unhappy enough to make him a very good writer. Robert Frost’s fat her was a reporter who wanted to be a politician( 政治家 ). He often drank too much wine and became angry. Robert was the victim of his anger. His father treated him unkindly and always put him in the darkness. A s a child, he was very afraid of darkness. W hen he was eleven, his father died. After he finished high school, Robert’s grandfather offered to pay his costs at Dartmouth College. But Robert left the school after a few months. He did not like it. He spent the next few years working at different jobs. At one time, he worked in a factory. Later, he repaired shoes. He was a teacher. He was a reporter. Always, he wrote poetry. Robert Frost attended Harvard University for two years. After that, he returned to the many jobs he held before. For a while, Frost tried to take care of a farm in the state of New Hampshire. He was not a successful farmer. And he continued to write poetry. He said that until 1930, he earned only about ten dollars a year from writing. In 1912, he decided to try to make a new start. He took his family to Britain. The cost of living was low. In Britain, Frost found a publisher for his first book of poems. The book was called A Boy’s Will . When it appeared in 1913 , Frost received high praise from British readers. B ut he had not received any praise in his own country. Ezra Pound, another American poet living in Britain, read the poems and liked them very much. He wrote a n article about Frost. He also helped get Frost’s second book of poems published in America. That book was called North of Boston.