author
Lewis E. (Lewis Edwards) Gates
1860–1924
A Harvard-based teacher and literary critic, he wrote with a clear eye for how readers respond to style, taste, and changing literary fashions. His books bring together essays on major English writers and show the classroom side of criticism at the turn of the twentieth century.
1 Audiobook
Three studies in literature
by Lewis E. (Lewis Edwards) Gates
About the author
Born in Warsaw, New York, in 1860, Lewis Edwards Gates became an educator and critic whose career was closely tied to Harvard. Contemporary records identify him as a Harvard graduate who went on to teach there, eventually serving in English and writing criticism that reached both students and general readers.
Gates is best known for essay collections such as Studies and Appreciations and Three Studies in Literature, along with edited selections from writers including Francis Jeffrey and John Henry Newman. His work focused less on grand theory than on close, readable judgments about authors, style, and literary taste.
He is also remembered as a teacher who encouraged younger writers. Accounts of Frank Norris's Harvard year note Gates as an important influence, and Norris later dedicated McTeague to him. Gates died in 1924.