He attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he earned a B.A.

During these years, Ferlinghetti became an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. After attending various schools, including Riverdale Country School, Bronxville Public School, and Mount Hermon School (now Northfield Mount Hermon School). In 1926, Ferlinghetti was left in the care of the Bislands. She was eventually hired as a French governess for the daughter of Presley Eugene Bisland and his wife Anna Lawrence Bisland, in Bronxville, New York, the latter being the daughter of the founder of Sarah Lawrence College, William Van Duzer Lawrence. Emily took Ferlinghetti to Strasbourg, France, where they lived during his first five years, with French as his first language.Īfter their return to the U.S., Ferlinghetti was placed in an orphanage in Chappaqua, N.Y. He was raised by his French aunt Emily, former wife of Ludovico Monsanto, an uncle of his mother from the Virgin Islands who taught Spanish at the U.S. Though he used 'Ferling' for his earliest published work, Ferlinghetti reverted to the original Italian 'Ferlinghetti' in 1955, when publishing his first book of poems, Pictures of the Gone World.įerlinghetti's father died six months before he was born, and his mother was committed to an asylum shortly after his birth.

At some unknown point, Carlo Ferlinghetti shortened the family name to 'Ferling,' and Lawrence wouldn't learn of his original name until 1942, when he had to provide a birth certificate to join the U.S. He immigrated to the United States in 1894, was naturalized in 1896, and worked as an auctioneer in Little Italy, NYC. His father, Carlo Ferlinghetti, was born in the province of Brescia, Italy on March 14, 1872.

His mother, Albertine Mendes-Monsanto (born in Lyon, France) was of French/Portuguese Sephardic Jewish heritage. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Bronxville, New York on March 24, 1919. Author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and film narration, he is best known for A Coney Island of the Mind (1958), a collection of poems that has been translated into nine languages, with sales of over one million copies. Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born Madied February 2nd 2022) is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers.

He wrote a coney island of the mind