author
Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury
1838–1915
A Yale scholar, Civil War veteran, and lively defender of plain English, he became one of America’s notable literary critics in the late 19th century. He is especially remembered for writing on Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the quirks of English spelling.
2 Audiobooks
James Fenimore Cooper American Men of Letters
by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury
English spelling and spelling reform
by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury
About the author
Born in Ovid, New York, in 1838, Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury studied at Yale and went on to build a long academic career there. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War, then returned to literary work and later taught English at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School, where he became known as a respected scholar and critic.
Lounsbury wrote widely on English literature and language. He produced important studies of Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, and he also wrote about the history and oddities of English usage in a way that could be sharp, witty, and approachable.
He was part of the broader movement for simplified spelling, though his lasting reputation rests on his literary scholarship and his clear, opinionated prose. He died in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1915.