Edwin H. Cady has for more than forty years been a distinguished and quietly influential presence in the field of American literature as well as within the profession of higher education. Never a critical enfant terrible in the manner, say, of Leslie Fiedler or Stanley Fish, still less a flamboyant biographer or follower of critical fashion, Cady has since 1945 been the author of almost one hundred books, book chapters, and scholarly articles on subjects ranging from individual authors (primarily William Dean Howells and Stephen Crane) to American literary realism, the concept of the gentleman in American life and letters, the uses and teaching of literature, cultural history, the function of criticism, the Bible in nineteenth-century American fiction, scholarly editing, and collegiate athletics.

Born in Old Tappan, New Jersey, on 9 November 1917 to Edwin Laird and Ethel Sprague Harrison Cady, Edwin Harrison Cady graduated from Tenafly High School in 1935. He...