People like Delmore Schwartz

Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 – July 11, 1966) was an American poet and short story writer.

Schwartz was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, where he also grew up. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when Schwartz was nine, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. He had a younger brother, Kenneth. In 1930, Schwartz's father suddenly died at the age of 49. Though Harry had accumulated a good deal of wealth from his dealings in the real estate business, Delmore inherited only a small amount of that money as the result of the shady dealings of the executor of Harry's estate. According to Schwartz's biographer, James Atlas, "Delmore continued to hope that he would eventually receive his legacy [even] as late as 1946."