Raymond M. (Raymond Melbourne) Weaver

Born in Baltimore in 1888, Raymond Melbourne Weaver became a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, where he taught for much of his career. Before settling there, he graduated from Columbia Teachers College in 1910 and spent time in Japan teaching English in Hiroshima, an experience that also helped launch his early writing.

Weaver is most closely linked with Herman Melville. After being encouraged to write about Melville for The Nation in 1919, he discovered how little serious work had been done on the author and went further, publishing Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic in 1921. That book is widely associated with the early "Melville Revival," the movement that helped bring Melville back into broad literary recognition.

Beyond his Melville scholarship, Weaver wrote fiction, reviews, introductions, and essays. Columbia's archival records also note manuscripts and correspondence related to his novel Black Valley. He died in New York City on April 4, 1948.