author
George R. (George Rice) Carpenter
1863–1909
A lively early American scholar of literature and rhetoric, he wrote accessible studies of writers like Longfellow, Whittier, and Walt Whitman while helping shape English studies at Columbia University.
1 Audiobook
Elementary Composition
by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, George R. (George Rice) Carpenter
About the author
Born in Labrador on October 25, 1863, George Rice Carpenter became an American educator, scholar, and writer whose work connected literary criticism with classroom teaching. He graduated from Harvard, studied in Europe, taught at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later joined Columbia University, where he held the chair of rhetoric.
Carpenter wrote widely on English literature and composition, and he was especially known for books that introduced major authors to general readers and students. His published works included studies of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Walt Whitman, along with textbooks and anthologies on rhetoric and English prose.
Remembered as both a teacher and a literary scholar, he helped bring a broad, readable style to academic writing about literature. He died in New York on April 8, 1909, at just 45 years old, but his books remained part of the literary and educational world for years afterward.