Wylie was born in Somerville, New Jersey. Her grandfather, Henry M. Hoyt, was a governor of Pennsylvania. She was raised in this socially prominent family in Washington, D.C. Her aunt was Helen Hoyt, a minor poet. She graduated in 1912 from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland. She eloped with Harvard graduate Philip Simmons Hichborn (September 30, 1882 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - committed suicide 1912) son of a rear-admiral Philip Hichborn (March 4, 1839 in Charlestown, Massachusetts - 1910), they were married on December 13, 1906. She later eloped with Horace Wylie while still married to Hichborn. She married three times and had a son Philip Simmons Hichborn, Jr. (September 22, 1907 in Washington, D.C. - ?) by her first husband. Her last marriage (in 1923) was to William Rose Benét (February 2, 1886 in Brooklyn, New York - May 4, 1950) who was part of her literary circle and brother of Stephen Vincent Benet.Her parents were Henry Martyn Hoyt (December 1856 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania - ?) and Anne Morton McMichael (July 31, 1861 in Pa. -?). Their other children were:

• Henry Martyn Hoyt (May 8, 1887 in Pa. - 1920 in New York City) who married Alice Gordon Parker (January 27, 1885 in Newark, New Jersey - 1951)
• Constance A. Hoyt (May 20, 1889 in Pa. - 1923 in Bavaria, Germany) who married Ferdinand von Stumm-Halberg on March 30, 1910 in Washington, D.C.
• Morton McMichael Hoyt (April 4, 1899 in Washington, D.C. - ?), three times married and divorced Eugenia Bankhead, known as "Sister" and sister of Tallulah Bankhead
• Nancy McMichael Hoyt (October 01, 1902 in Washington, D.C - ?) romance novelist who wrote Elinor Wylie: The Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1935). She married Edward Davison Curtis, they divorced in 1932.

Talented in several arts, she was torn between painting and writing, but her position inside Washington, D.C. literary circles, particularly with John Dos Passos and Edmund Wilson, encouraged her writing efforts. She wrote eight novels and several books of poetry. Her first book, Incidental Numbers (1912), was published privately in England. The first of her books to bring her recognition was her first official collection of poetry, Nets to Catch the Wind (1921). She was named literary editor of Vanity Fair magazine in 1922.

Her other volumes of poetry include: Black Armour (1923), Trivial Breath (1928), Angels and Earthly Creatures (1929), and Collected Poems of Elinor Wylie (1932). Wylie's literary interests are largely conservative and formal, as demonstrated by her preoccupation with the sonnet. Heavily influenced by 16th and 17th century English poetics, Wylie also shares the Romantics' infatuation with nature and fantasy.

Her last novel, Orphan Angel (1926) explores what Percy Bysshe Shelley's life would have been like if he had escaped his early death and moved to America.

• Angels and Earthly Creatures
• Black Armour
• Collected Poems
• Collected Prose
• Incidental numbers
• Last Poems of Elinor Wylie
• Nets to Catch the Wind
• Prophecy
• Selected Works of Elinor Wylie
• Trivial Breath

Novels

• Jennifer Lorn: A Sedate Extravaganza (1923)
• The Venetian Glass Nephew (1925)
• The Orphan Angel (1926) published as "Mortal Image in England
• Mr. Hodge and Mr. Hazard (1928)