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Edward Mendelson (born March 15, 1946) is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. He is the
literary executor
The literary estate of a deceased author consists mainly of the copyright and other intellectual property rights of published works, including film, translation rights, original manuscripts of published work, unpublished or partially completed wo ...
of the Estate of
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
and the author or editor of several books about Auden's work, including ''Early Auden'' (1981) and ''Later Auden'' (1999). He is also the author of ''The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life'' (2006), about nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels, and ''Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers'' (2015).
He has edited standard editions of works by W. H. Auden, including ''Collected Poems'' (1976; 2nd edn. 1990; 3rd edn., 2007), ''The English Auden'' (1977), ''Selected Poems'' (1979, 2nd edn., 2007), ''As I Walked Out One Evening'' (selected light verse, 1995), and the continuing ''Complete Works of W. H. Auden'' (1986– ).
His work on
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...
includes ''Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays'' (1978) and numerous essays, including "The Sacred, the Profane, and ''
The Crying of Lot 49
''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...
'' (1975; reprinted in the 1978 collection) and "Gravity's Encyclopedia" (in ''Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon)''. The latter essay introduced the critical category of " encyclopedic narrative," further elaborated in a later essay, "Encyclopedic Narrative from Dante to Pynchon".
He is the editor of annotated editions of novels by
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...
,
George Meredith
George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but he gradually established a reputation as a novelist. ''The Ord ...
,
Arnold Bennett
Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist. He wrote prolifically: between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboratio ...
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the '' Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves ar ...
. With Michael Seidel he co-edited ''Homer to Brecht; The European Epic and Dramatic Traditions'' (1977).
He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 2015. He was elected a Member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 2017. He is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
, and was the first Isabel Dalhousie Fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH, University of Edinburgh) was founded in 1969 at the University of Edinburgh, for visiting fellows to engage in study and research in the arts, humanities and social sciences. The current ...
at the University of Edinburgh.
Before teaching at Columbia, he was an associate professor of English at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
and a visiting associate professor of English at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. He received a B.A. from the
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.
The University of Roc ...
(1966) and a Ph.D. from the
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
(1969).
Since 1986 he has written about computing, software, and typography and is a contributing editor of ''
PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
*
** Other editions: Random House, 1976. Revised edition: Vintage Books, 1991 ; Faber & Faber, 1991. Further revised edition: Modern Library, 2007; Faber & Faber 2007.
* (as co-editor) ''Homer to Brecht: The European Epic and Dramatic Traditions''. Yale University Press, 1977. In collaboration with Michael Seidel.
* (as editor) '' Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays''. Prentice-Hall, 1978.
* (as editor) W. H. Auden. ''The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings'', 1927–1939. Faber & Faber, 1977; Random House, 1978.
* (as editor) W. H. Auden. ''Selected Poems: New Edition''. Vintage Books, 1978; Faber & Faber, 1978; expanded edition: Vintage Books, 2007.
* ''Early Auden''. Viking, 1981; Faber & Faber, 1981; revised paperback edition: Harvard University Press, 1983; Faber & Faber, 1999; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000.
* (as editor) ''The Complete Works of W. H. Auden'' (eight vols). Princeton University Press, 1986– ; Faber & Faber, 1986– .
* ''Later Auden''. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999; Faber & Faber, 1999; revised paperback edition: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000.
* ''The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have To Say About the Stages of Life''. Pantheon, 2006; with new afterword, Anchor Books, 2007.
* ''Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers''. New York Review Books, 2015.
* ''Early Auden, Later Auden: A Critical Biography''. Princeton University Press, 2018; revised from two earlier books on Auden.
Essays and reporting
* "The Sacred, the Profane, and ''The Crying of Lot 49''". ''Individual and Community: Variations on a Theme in American Literature'', ed. Kenneth H. Baldwin and David K. Kirby. Duke University Press, 1975; revised version in ''Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays'' (see above),
* "Gravity's Encyclopedia". ''Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon'', ed. George Levine and David Leverenz. Little, Brown, 1976.
* "Encyclopedic Narrative, from Dante to Pynchon". ''MLN'', 91 (December 1976).
* "The Word & the Web". ''New York Times Book Review'', 2 June 1996.
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