Rittenhouse, Jessie Bell (1869-1948)

US critic, anthologist, and poet. She published The Younger American Poets 1904, a volume of critical essays. She was a regular reviewer for the New York Times Review of Books 1905-15 and helped found the Poetry Society of America in 1910.

She was born in the Genesee Valley, New York. She graduated from the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York , in 1890 with a strong literary interest, and reviewed books of poetry for newspapers in Buffalo and Rochester, New York. In 1899 she moved to Boston to devote her time fully to literary criticism. In 1913 she published the first of six innovative poetic anthologies, The Little Book of Modern Verse. Her own poetry, was published in The Door of Dreams 1918, The Lifted Cup 1921, and The Secret Bird 1930.