Leonard Wolf (March 1, 1923 – March 20, 2019) was a Romanian-American poet, author, teacher, and translator. He is known for his authoritative annotated editions of classic

gothic horror Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

novels, including ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking ...

'', ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...

'', ''

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'' is a 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old ...

'', and ''

The Phantom of the Opera ''The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierr ...

'', and other critical works on the topic; and also for his

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

translations of works ranging from those of

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

to ''

Winnie-the-Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character w ...

''. He was the father of

Naomi Wolf Naomi Rebekah Wolf (born November 12, 1962) is an American feminist author, journalist and conspiracy theorist. Following her first book '' The Beauty Myth'' (1991), she became a leading spokeswoman of what has been described as the third wave ...

Life and career

Born in Vulcan,

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

(

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

), Wolf was originally named 'Ludovic', which was changed upon his arrival in the United States in 1930 with his mother, Rose-ita, older brother, Maxim (Mel) and younger sister, Shirly. He wrote and published numerous poems, short stories, book reviews and articles, and was part of the

Berkeley Renaissance The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetry avant-garde in the 1950s. However, others (e.g., Alan Watts ...

of the late 1940s and 1950s. He was a professor of English at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

(SFSU) until moving to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

around 1980, focussing on teaching poetry. He is the author of several books including ''A Dream of Dracula'', ''Blood Thirst'', ''100 Years of Vampire Fiction'' (editor), ''Bluebeard : The Life and Crimes of Gilles De Rais'', ''Doubles, Dummies and Dolls : Twenty-One Terror Tales of Replication'' (editor), ''Dracula : the Connoisseur's Guide'', ''False Messiah'', ''Horror - A Connoisseur's Guide To Literature And Film'', ''Monsters: Twenty Terrible and Wonderful Beasts From The Classic Dragon And Colossal Minotaur To King Kong And The Great Godzilla'', ''Quiromancia/ Chiromancy'', ''The False Messiah'', ''Voices from the love generation'' (Little, Brown, 1968), ''The Glass Mountain: A Novel'' (Overlook Press, 1993), ''The Passion of Israel'' yLeonard Wolf. Interviews Taken and Edited in Collaboration with Deborah Wolf, ''Wolf's Complete Book of Terror'' (editor), and ''Vini-Der-Pu: A

version of

Winnie the Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character w ...

'' (Dutton 2000). Wolf lived in New York. He was commissioned by

Farrar, Straus & Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...

to write a biography of

. ''The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live, Love and See'', by his daughter Naomi was published by Simon & Schuster in 2005. He died on March 20, 2019 in Corvallis, Oregon.

Happening House

While teaching at San Francisco State University in 1967, Wolf founded Happening House,Naomi Wolf (2005)
Page 217
(viewed at Google Books). one of many organizations that originated with the

hippies A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

of the

Haight Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...

district. It was conceived as an alternate university, an arts center and a place of learning. It often planned and sponsored social events such as softball games and free concerts. In collaboration with the

Haight Ashbury Switchboard During the " hippie" period 1967–1968 in San Francisco, an individual named Al Rinker started an organization located at 1830 Fell St in the city's Haight Ashbury district called the Switchboard. Its purpose was to act as a social switchboard f ...

it had intermittent connections with the

Haight Ashbury Free Clinic The Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, Inc. is a free health care service provider serving more than 34,000 people in Northern California. Overview The organization was founded by Dr. David E. Smith in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California on J ...

References

External links

Leonard Wolf
at Fantastic Fiction * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf, Leonard 1923 births 2019 deaths People from Vulcan, Hunedoara 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American horror writers American non-fiction crime writers American academics of English literature Romanian emigrants to the United States Romanian Ashkenazi Jews Jewish American writers San Francisco State University faculty American film historians Translators from Yiddish 20th-century translators American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers 21st-century American Jews