The King Edward VII Professorship of English Literature is one of the senior

professorships Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, and was founded by a donation from

Sir Harold Harmsworth ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

in 1910 in memory of

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

who had died earlier that year.

King Edward VII Professors

Arthur Woollgar Verrall Arthur Woollgar Verrall (5 February 1851, Brighton – 18 June 1912, Cambridge) was a British classics scholar associated with Trinity College, Cambridge, and the first occupant of the King Edward VII Chair of English. He was noted for his transl ...

(1911) * Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (1912–1944) *

Basil Willey Basil Willey, (25 July 1897 – 3 September 1978) was British scholar of English literature and intellectual history. Having served in the British Army during the First World War, he rose to become King Edward VII Professor of English Literature a ...

(1946) *

Lionel Charles Knights Lionel Charles Knights (15 May 1906 – 8 March 1997) was an English literary critic, an authority on Shakespeare and his period. His essay ''How many children had Lady Macbeth?'' (1933) is a classic of modern criticism. He became King Edward VII ...

(1965) * John Frank Kermode (1974) *

Christopher Bruce Ricks Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks (born 18 September 1933) is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (US), co-director of the Editorial Institute at Boston Uni ...

(1982) *

Marilyn Butler Marilyn Speers Butler, Lady Butler, FRSA, FRSL, FBA (''née'' Evans; 11 February 1937 – 11 March 2014) was a British literary critic. She was King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge from 1986 to 1993 ...

(1986) * Gillian Patricia Kempster Beer (1994) * David Trotter (2002) *

Clair Wills Clair Wills, , is a British academic specialising in 20th-century British and Irish cultural history and literature. Since 2019, she has been King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow (Oxbridge), f ...

(2019)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edward 7 Professor of English Literature, King English Literature, King Edward VII Professor of