In this study of the relationship between illness and art, Kay Redfield Jamison, brings an entirely fresh understanding to the work and life of Robert Lowell (1917-1977).  Lowell put his manic-depressive illness into the public domain through his poetry, and created a language for madness that was new and arresting. As Dr. Jamison brings her expertise in mood disorders to bear on Lowell’s story, she illuminates not only the relationships among mania, depression, and creativity but also the details of Lowell’s treatment and how illness and treatment influenced the great work that he produced (and often became its subject). Lowell’s New England roots, early breakdowns, marriages to three eminent writers, friendships with other poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, his many hospitalizations, his vivid presence as both a teacher and a maker of poems - Jamison gives us the poet’s life through a lens that focuses our understanding of his intense discipline, courage, and commitment to his art. Jamison had unprecedented access to Lowell’s medical records, as well as to previously unpublished drafts and fragments of poems, and she is the first biographer to have spoken with his daughter, Harriet Lowell. With this new material and a psychologist’s deep insight, Jamison delivers a bold, sympathetic account of a poet who was - both despite and because of mental illness - a passionate, original observer of the human condition. “Groundbreaking. . . . A case study of what a person with an extraordinary will, an unwavering sense of vocation, and a huge talent . . . could and could not do about the fact that the defining feature of his gift was also the source of his suffering.” - The New Yorker “Impassioned, intellectually thrilling. . . . Empathetic and astute, as heartfelt as it is heartbreaking.” - The Washington Post