Harvey W. (Harvey Waterman) Hewett-Thayer

Born in 1873, Harvey Waterman Hewett-Thayer built a career as a scholar and teacher of German literature. Records connected with Princeton describe him as one of the early modern-language instructors chosen in the university's 1905 expansion of the field, and later references note that most of his professional life was spent on the Princeton faculty.

His books show the breadth of his interests. He wrote on topics such as Laurence Sterne in Germany, the modern German novel, and the way American literature was viewed in Germany, and he also edited an anthology of nineteenth-century German literature. One of his best-known works is Hoffmann: Author of the Tales (1948), a substantial study of E. T. A. Hoffmann.

Available sources suggest he died in 1960. I couldn't confirm enough reliable biographical detail online to say much more with confidence, but the outline is clear: he was a dedicated academic who helped introduce generations of English-speaking readers and students to German literary history.