When Edgar Lee Masters turned the dead into protagonists of a classic of universal poetry

In May 1914, Edgar Lee Masters received a visit from his mother. During the time he stayed in the house with him and his family, they both had long conversations in which they remembered the time they had resided in Lewistown and Petersburg, two small towns in Pennsylvania and Virginia, respectively. Thanks to his mother, Masters recalled the lives and anecdotes of the inhabitants of those places, and suddenly, he had an idea. "The morning my mo…