George Whalley is best known as scholar, teacher, critic, and essayist of literary and public matters. His first two published books, however, and his latest, which appeared three years after his death, are of poetry, and he composed many radio productions on literary or biographical subjects. His biography of the Arctic adventurer John Hornby had considerable circulation in Canada and abroad and has been republished in paperback. He also wrote an influential book of poetic theory, Poetic Process (1953).

He was born on 25 July 1915 in Kingston, Ontario, son of the Very Reverend Arthur Francis Cecil Whalley and Dorothy Quirk Whalley. George Whalley studied at Bishop's University (B.A., 1935; M.A., 1948), at Oriel College, Oxford (B.A., 1939; M.A., 1945), and at King's College, London (Ph.D., 1950). He went to Oxford as Rhodes Scholar for Quebec. His studies there were interrupted by his five years' service with the Royal Canadian Navy...