Edwin-Arlington Robinson was a very lonely man. He often struggled with unhappiness due to his unfortunate childhood and love life. However, this aspect of his life was incorporated into his poetry and made him into one heck of a poet. His poetry was a reflection of his life. His poems often incorporated lonely, male characters that just wanted to be accepted into the world that they lived in. The poem Richard Cory reflects this. Robinson wrote Richard Cory around 1893, during a time of economic depression in America. The people were not able to afford meat or fresh bread, so they often lived on day-old bread. They were living on barely anything, so when Richard Cory would visit they would talk because they knew he had money. He was rich.