Hilda Doolittle was born on September 10, 1886, in the Moravian community of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.[3] Her father, Charles, was professor of astronomy at Lehigh University in Bethlehem,[4] and her mother, Helen (née Wolle),[5] was a member of the Moravian brotherhood. Hilda was one of six children, and had five brothers. When her father was appointed professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania to take charge of the Flower Observatory in Philadelphia,[6] the family moved to Upper Darby.
She attended Friends' Central School in Philadelphia, and graduated in 1905. She delivered a commencement address, titled "The Poet's Influence".[7] She enrolled at Bryn Mawr College in 1905 to study Greek literature,[8] where she met the poets Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams. After three terms of poor grades, H.D. withdrew from the college, and studied at home until 1910.[9]
H.D. met poet Ezra Pound as a teenager in 1901. Pound became a lifelong friend and played a formative role in her development as a writer. In 1905, Pound and H.D. began an on-and-off relationship[10] which included at least two engagements.[11] Although his parents were in favor of the relationship, her parents strongly objected.[12] In 1907, Pound gave her Hilda's Book, a handmade vellum binding of twenty-five of his earliest love poems, which he dedicated to her.[13]
In 1910, Doolittle began a relationship with Frances Josepha Gregg, a young female art student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.[14] Inspired by Gregg, H.D. wrote her first published poems, modeled after the work of Theocritus.[15] Some of her early work, including some children's stories about astronomy, was published in New York newspapers and Presbyterian newsletters.[16]
