author
De Witt Clinton Croissant
1876–1941
A longtime literature professor and scholar of Restoration drama, this early 20th-century critic is best known for his studies of playwright Colley Cibber and for his ties to major American universities.
1 Audiobook
Humanistic Studies of the University of Kansas, Vol. 1
by De Witt Clinton Croissant, Edmund Dresser Cressman, Pearl Hogrefe, Arthur Mitchell
About the author
Born in 1876 and dying in 1941, he built his career as an English professor and literary scholar. Records available online connect him with Princeton University, the University of Kansas, and later George Washington University, where he ultimately led the English department.
His best-known work is Studies in the Work of Colley Cibber, a scholarly study that began as doctoral research at Princeton. He also appears in Humanistic Studies of the University of Kansas, Vol. 1, reflecting his place in the academic literary world of the early 1900s.
His name remained part of university life after his death through the DeWitt Clinton Croissant Prize at George Washington University, awarded for work on drama or the theatre. That legacy fits the interests that shaped his writing: close reading, theatre history, and a deep engagement with English literature.