author
Van Wyck Brooks
1886–1963
Best known for asking what a distinctly American literature could be, this influential critic and historian helped generations of readers see the nation’s writers as part of one living tradition. His books mix sharp cultural argument with an obvious love of literary lives.
2 Audiobooks
The Ordeal of Mark Twain
by Van Wyck Brooks
The World of H.G. Wells
by Van Wyck Brooks
About the author
Van Wyck Brooks was an American literary critic, biographer, and historian, born in Plainfield, New Jersey, on February 16, 1886. He graduated from Harvard University and went on to build a long career interpreting American culture and literature for a wide audience.
He is especially remembered for arguing that the United States needed a "usable past"—a richer connection to its own cultural inheritance. That idea shaped much of his criticism, and his multi-volume Makers and Finders series traced American literary life from the early 19th century into the early 20th. Over the years, he became one of the best-known literary historians of his time.
Brooks also wrote biographies and critical studies of major figures including Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, and New England writers more broadly. He received the Pulitzer Prize for History for The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865, and he died in Bridgewater, Connecticut, on May 2, 1963.