Paul Elmer More

Born in St. Louis in 1864 and educated at Harvard, Paul Elmer More went on to become an influential American critic, essayist, editor, and man of letters. He is closely associated with New Humanism, a movement that pushed back against literary trends it saw as overly sentimental or unmoored from moral judgment.

More wrote widely across genres, including criticism, poetry, fiction, and religious and philosophical reflection. He is especially remembered for the multi-volume Shelburne Essays, which helped build his reputation as a serious critic with a strong interest in ethics, classical thought, and the standards by which literature should be judged.

Later in life he continued to write on religion and culture, and he died in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1937. His work reflects a lifelong effort to connect literature with character, discipline, and the deeper questions of civilization.