The central location for the Bread Loaf School of English is the campus located outside Middlebury, in sight of Bread Loaf Mountain in the Green Mountains of Vermont. The original mountain and forest area in which the School of English is located was willed to Middlebury College in 1915 by Joseph Battell, breeder of Morgan horses, proprietor of the local newspaper, and spirited lover of nature. Mr. Battell acquired large landholdings, tract by tract, starting in 1866, until several mountains were among his properties. In this striking setting Mr. Battell constructed the Bread Loaf Inn and other buildings to house his summer guests. Modern improvements and the addition of several buildings have enhanced the charm and conveniences of the original inn and the surrounding "cottages," but the nineteenth-century structures in their Green Mountain site still make an unforgettable impression.

During the last 87 years Bread Loaf has counted among its faculty members such distinguished teachers and scholars as George K. Anderson, Carlos Baker, Harold Bloom, James Britton, Richard Brodhead, Cleanth Brooks, Reuben Brower, Donald Davidson, Elizabeth Drew, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Laurence B. Holland, Nancy Martin, Perry Miller, Martin Price, John Crowe Ransom, Donald Stauffer, and Wylie Sypher. But no one has been identified with Bread Loaf more indelibly than has Robert Frost (pictured), who first came to the School on the invitation of Dean Wilfred Davison in 1921. Friend and neighbor to Bread Loaf, Frost returned to the School every summer with but three exceptions for 42 years. His influence is still felt, in part because Middlebury College owns and maintains the Robert Frost Farm as a National Historic Site near the Bread Loaf campus.

In December 2005, Bread Loaf's Director James Maddox addressed a group of Middlebury College Trustees and spouses on the subject of the School of English's history, its current focus, and possible new directions. Click here to read the text of that talk.