author
Edwin Herbert Lewis
1866–1938
A pioneering English scholar, teacher, poet, and novelist, Edwin Herbert Lewis combined practical instruction with a wide-ranging literary imagination. His work reached from composition textbooks and literary studies to novels, poetry, and the lyrics of the University of Chicago alma mater.
3 Audiobooks
White Lightning
by Edwin Herbert Lewis
A First Book in Writing English
by Edwin Herbert Lewis
Those about Trench
by Edwin Herbert Lewis
About the author
Edwin Herbert Lewis (1866–1938) was born in Westerly, Rhode Island. He earned degrees from Alfred University and Syracuse University before receiving the University of Chicago’s first Ph.D. in English in 1894. He began his academic career teaching rhetoric and English at the University of Chicago and later became a professor of English at Chicago’s Lewis Institute, where he remained until retiring in 1934.
Lewis wrote influential instructional books including The History of the English Paragraph, A First Book in Writing English, Specimens of the Forms of Discourse, A Text-Book of Applied English Grammar, and Business English. He also published poetry, juvenile fiction, and novels, including Those About Trench, White Lightning, and Sallie’s Newspaper.
A committed educator with interests extending beyond the classroom, Lewis wrote the words to the University of Chicago’s alma mater in 1894. He spent his retirement in Palo Alto, California, where he completed an unpublished novel shortly before his death in 1938.