Robert D. Richardson Jr., author of acclaimed books on
Emerson and Thoreau and on American literature and myth, will speak on
“Sinking Ships, Erupting Volcanos, and the Writing of Literary
Biography” on Wednesday, Oct. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in Everest Lounge.
Richardson is the author, most recently, of Henry
Thoreau: A Life of the Mind (1986) and Emerson: The Mind on Fire
(1995), for which he won the Bancroft Award in History.
His work is widely acclaimed. The Thoreau book is called
“definite, outstanding, fundamental, superb;” his biography of
Emerson has been praised as “graceful, humorous, acute and
essential.”
He has taught at Harvard University, University of
Colorado and Wesleyan University.
He is the editor, with Allen Mandelbaum, of the recently
published Three Centuries of American Poetry (Doubleday).
Richardson's talk is sponsored by the English
department.