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Edward Mendelson is a professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University.
He is the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden 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 a book about nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels, The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life (2006).
Among the volumes by W. H. Auden that he has edited are Auden's 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 includes Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays (1978) and numerous essays, including "The Sacred, the Profane, and The Crying of Lot 49 (1975; reprinted in the 1978 collection) and "Gravity's Encyclopedia" (in Mindful Pleasures: Essays on Thomas Pynchon, ed. by David Leverenz and George Levine, 1976). The latter essay established the widely-used critical category of "encyclopedic narrative, which he further described in another essay, "Encyclopedic Narrative from Dante to Pynchon" (MLN, vol. 91, 1976).
He is the editor of annotated editions of novels by Thomas Hardy, George Meredith, Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells, and Anthony Trollope. With Michael Seidel he co-edited Homer to Brecht; The European Epic and Dramatic Traditions (1977).
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Before he went to Columbia, he was an associate professor of English at Yale University and a visiting associate professor of English at Harvard University.
Since 1986 he has written about computing, software, and typography and is a contributing editor of PC Magazine.
Popular Culture
In the film Into My Heart (1997) the character of Professor Mendelkern referred to by Ben Hawks (Rob Morrow) is said to be based on Mendelson.
In Alexander McCall Smith's novel The Right Attitude to Rain (2006), the main character exchanges letters with Mendelson about W.H. Auden and Robert Burns.
Honors, Fellowships, and Grants
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, since 2003.
- Fellow of the English Association, since 2003.
- John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1986‐1987.
- American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1986‐1987 (declined).
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Independent Study and Research, 1980‐1981.
- A. Whitney Griswold Fund award, Yale University, 1979.
- National Humanities Institute Fellowship at the University of Chicago, 1977‐1978 (declined).
- A. Whitney Griswold Fund award, Yale University, 1976.
- American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 1974‐1975.
- Morse Fellowship, Yale University, 1974‐1975 (declined).
- National Defense Education Act Fellowship for Graduate Study, The Johns Hopkins University, 1966‐1969.
Education
- Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University, 1969 (thesis defense passed with distinction).
- B.A., The University of Rochester, 1966 ( summa cum laude).
Professional activities (selected)
- Literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden.
- Outside consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary Supplement.
- Board of Guarantors, Italian Academy of Advanced Studies in America, 2007‐ .
- Société Européenne de Culture, member since 1971.
- Academy of Literary Studies, member since 1982.
- MLA Division Executive Committee, Twentieth‐Century British Literature, member, 1985‐1989; chairman, 1988.
- MLA Committee on Educational Software, 1987‐1989.
- MLA Committee on Computers and Emerging Technology in Teaching and Research, 1989‐1990.
- Selection committees for the National Endowment for the Humanities; American Council of Learned Societies; Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature, Emory University; Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships at the 92nd Street , New York; judge for Twentieth Century Literature essay prize; and others.
- External examiner, Wesleyan University, City University of New York Graduate Center, Howard University; and elsewhere.
- Outside reader for Yale University Press, Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of California Press, University of Chicago Press, Cornell University Press, Faber & Faber, PMLA, and other presses and journals.
Miscellaneous
- Contributing Editor, PC Magazine; around three hundred reviews and essays since 1987; also reviews and essays for other computer‐related publications.
Publications
Monographs and Collections of Essays
- Homer to Brecht: The European Epic and Dramatic Traditions. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. Edited in collaboration with Michael Seidel.
- Pynchon: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice‐Hall, 1978. Edited with an introduction.
- Early Auden. New York: The Viking Press, 1981. London: Faber & Faber, 1981. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983 (revised paperback edition); London: Faber & Faber, 1999 (revised paperback edition). New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000 (revised paperback edition). Finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award in Criticism, 1981.
- Later Auden. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999; London: Faber & Faber, 1999; New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000 (revised paperback edition).
- The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have To Say About the Stages of Life. New York: Pantheon, 2006; with new afterword, Anchor Books, 2007 (forthcoming). Translated into Korean (forthcoming) and Complex Chinese (forthcoming)
Editions, Bibliography, Exhibition Catalogue
- W. H. Auden: A Bibliography, 1924‐1969. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1972. With B. C. Bloomfield.
- W. H. Auden. Forewords and Afterwords. New York: Random House, 1973. London: Faber & Faber, 1973. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
- Thomas Hardy. The Well‐Beloved. London: Macmillan, 1975. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976. London: Macmillan, 1985 (corrected paperback). (New Wessex Edition, introduction by J. Hillis Miller.)
- W. H. Auden 1907‐1973: An Exhibition from the Berg Collection. New York: The New York Public Library and Readex Books, 1976.
- W. H. Auden. Collected Poems. London: Faber & Faber, 1976. New York: Random House, 1976. Revised edition: New York: Vintage Books, 1991;
- London: Faber & Faber, 1991. Further revised edition with a new prefatory note: New York: Modern Library, 2007; London: Faber & Faber 2007.
- W. H. Auden. The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings, 1927‐1939. London: Faber & Faber, 1977. New York: Random House, 1978. London: Faber & Faber, 1986 (paperback edition).
- W. H. Auden. Selected Poems: New Edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. London: Faber & Faber, 1978. New York: Vintage Books, 1990 (reissue). Preface reprinted as “Auden’s Revision of Modernism” in Modern Critical Views: W. H. Auden, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 1986), pp. 111‐20; translated into Japanese in Oden Shishu, ed. Masao Nakagiri (Tokyo: Ozawa Shoten, 1993), pp. 198‐211; excerpts translated into French in the program of the production by Chatelet: Théâtre Musical de Paris of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, 28 September ‐ 12 October 1996.
- W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. Plays, and Other Dramatic Writings by W. H. Auden, 1928‐1938. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. London: Faber & Faber, 1989. First volume of The Complete Works of W. H. Auden.
- Arnold Bennett. Riceyman Steps and Elsie and the Child. London: Penguin Books, 1991. Edited with Robert Squillace.
- W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman. Libretti, and Other Dramatic Writings by W. H. Auden, 1939‐1973. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. London: Faber & Faber, 1993. Second volume of The Complete Works of W. H. Auden.
- W. H. Auden. The Prolific and the Devourer. Hopewell, N. J.: Ecco Press, 1993.
- W. H. Auden. Tell Me the Truth About Love. New York: Vintage Books, 1994; London: Faber & Faber, 1994.
- W. H. Auden. As I Waked Out One Evening: Songs, Ballads, Lullabies, Limericks, and Other Light Verse. New York: Vintage Books; London: Faber & Faber 1995.
- W. H. Auden. Prose, Volume I, 1926‐1938. Princeton: Princeton University Press; London: Faber & Faber, 1997. Third volume of The Complete Works of W. H. Auden.
- George Meredith. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998.
- Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll. New York: Sterling, 2000. (Poetry for Young People.)
- W. H. Auden. Prose, Volume II, 1939‐1948. Princeton: Princeton University Press; London: Faber & Faber, 2002. Fourth volume of The Complete Works of W. H. Auden.
- Edward Lear. Edward Lear. New York: Sterling, 2001. (Poetry for Young People.)
- W. H. Auden’s Book of Light Verse. New York: New York Review Books, 2004.
- H. G. Wells. Tono‐Bungay. London, New York: Penguin, 2005.
- Anthony Trollope. Barchester Towers. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005.
- W. H. Auden. Selected Poems: Expanded Edition. New York: Vintage Books; London: Faber & Faber, 2007.
- W. H. Auden. Prose, Volume III, 1949‐1955. Princeton: Princeton University Press; London: Faber & Faber, 2007. Fifth volume of The Complete Works of W. H. Auden.
- W. H. Auden. Prose, Volume IV, 1956‐1963. Princeton: Princeton University Press; London: Faber & Faber, (in preparation). Sixth volume of The Complete Works of W. H. Auden.
References
- Contemporary Authors (Gale Research), vol. 65-68
- Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series (Gale Research), vols. 11, 87
- The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English, ed. by Jenny Stringer (1996)