James Leslie Woodress, Jr., has devoted his distinguished career to scholarship in American literature and has written a series of biographies of American writers culminating in the authoritative biography of Willa Cather (1987). In addition, Woodress was founder and editor of American Literary Scholarship, editor of the definitive (1983) edition of Willa Cather's The Troll Garden, and author of more than a hundred essays, chapters, and monographs. In 1985 the American Literature Section of the Modern Language Association awarded Woodress its Hubbell Medal, given annually to a person "whose total body of work has been a major influence on the study and teaching of American literature."

Woodress was born in Webster Groves, Missouri, on 7 July 1916 to James Leslie Woodress, an electrical engineer, and Jessie Smith Woodress. He obtained his A.B. from Amherst College in 1938, after which he became a radio news editor at station KWK in St. Louis (1939-1940). Woodress...