Gordon S. Haight
Gordon Sherman Haight | |
|---|---|
Gordon S. Haight, from the 1923 yearbook of Yale University | |
| Born | February 6, 1901 |
| Died | December 28, 1985 (aged 84) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | English literature |
| Institutions | Yale University |
| Notable works | George Eliot: A Biography |
Gordon Sherman Haight (February 6, 1901 – December 28, 1985) was an American professor of English at Yale University from 1950 to 1968. He was the author of George Eliot: A Biography (1968) and the editor of The George Eliot Letters (1954–1955).
Early life and education
Haight was born in Muskegon, Michigan, the son of Lewis Pease Haight and Grace Carpenter Haight.[1] He graduated from Yale University in 1923, and earned his Ph.D. there in 1933, with a dissertation on English poet Francis Quarles.[2][3]
Career
Haight taught at the Kent School and the Hotchkiss School as a young man.[4] He taught English at Yale University beginning in 1933,[5] was master of Pierson College from 1949 to 1953, and was a full professor from 1950 to 1968. He was recognized as an expert on author George Eliot.[6] His biography of George Eliot won the Van Wyck Brooks Memorial Award and James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 1980, he was invited to give the dedication speech when a memorial stone for Eliot was placed in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner.[2]
Personal life
Haight married Mary Nettleton in 1937. He died at home in Woodbridge, Connecticut, in December 1985, at the age of 84.[2][7]
Works
- "Longfellow and Mrs. Sigourney" (1930)[8]
- Mrs. Sigourney, The Sweet Singer of Hartford (1930)[9]
- "The Publication of Quarles' Emblems" (1934)[10]
- "The Sources of Quarles' Emblems" (1935)[11]
- "Francis Quarles in the Civil War" (1936)[12]
- "The John William De Forest Collection" (1940)[13]
- "Cross's Biography of George Eliot" (1950)[14]
- "Dickens and Lewes on Spontaneous Combustion" (1958)[15]
- "George Meredith and the Westminster Review" (1958)[16]
- "H. G. Wells' The Man of the Year Million" (1958)[17]
- Adam Bede (1964, introduction)[18]
- George Eliot: A Biography (1968)[19]
- George Eliot's Originals and Contemporaries: Essays in Victorian Literary History and Biography (1992, published posthumously)[20]
Works edited by Gordon S. Haight
- Edward FitzGerald and the Rubaiyat (1942)
- Francis Bacon, Essays and New Atlantis (1942)
- The George Eliot Letters, 7 vols. (1954–55)[21]
- George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
- A century of George Eliot criticism (1965)
- George Eliot & John Chapman, with Chapman's Diaries (1969; first edition 1940)
- George Eliot: A Centenary Tribute (1982, with Rosemary T. VanArsdel)[22]
References
- ^ History of the class of nineteen hundred twenty-three, Yale College. New Haven, Conn.: Class Secretaries Bureau. 1923. pp. 141–142 – via HathiTrust.
- ^ a b c "Gordon S. Haight, 84, Authority on George Eliot". The New York Times. December 29, 1985. p. 22. Retrieved November 24, 2025.
- ^ Haight, Gordon Sherman. Francis Quarles and His" Emblems". Yale University, 1933.
- ^ "Yale Professor on Club Program; Gordon Haight to Address Alumni Here Thursday". Tulsa World. March 28, 1950. p. 15. Retrieved November 24, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "To Speak to Yale Alumni; Gordon S. Haight, Associate Professor, Here Friday NIght". The Kansas City Star. March 27, 1950. p. 13. Retrieved November 24, 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Gordon Haight, George Eliot Scholar, Dies". Los Angeles Times. January 2, 1986. Retrieved November 24, 2025.
- ^ Adams, Kathleen (1986). "Obituary: Gordon S. Haight". The George Eliot Review.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1930). "Longfellow and Mrs. Sigourney". The New England Quarterly. 3 (3): 532–537. doi:10.2307/359402. ISSN 0028-4866.
- ^ Haight, Gordon Sherman (1930). Mrs. Sigourney, the sweet singer of Hartford.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1934). "The Publication of Quarles' Emblems". The Library. s4-XV (1): 97–109. doi:10.1093/library/s4-XV.1.97. ISSN 0024-2160.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1935). "The Sources of Quarles's Emblems". The Library. s4-XVI (2): 188–209. doi:10.1093/library/s4-XVI.2.188. ISSN 0024-2160.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1936). "Francis Quarles in the Civil War". The Review of English Studies. 12 (46): 147–164. ISSN 0034-6551.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1940). "The John William De Forest Collection". The Yale University Library Gazette. 14 (3): 41–46. ISSN 0044-0175.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1950). "Cross's Biography of George Eliot". The Yale University Library Gazette. 25 (1): 1–9. ISSN 0044-0175.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1955). "Dickens and Lewes on Spontaneous Combustion". Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 10 (1): 53–63. doi:10.2307/3044373. ISSN 0029-0564.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1958). "George Meredith and the "Westminster Review"". The Modern Language Review. 53 (1): 1–16. doi:10.2307/3718121. ISSN 0026-7937.
- ^ Haight, Gordon S. (1958). "H. G. Wells's "The Man of the Year Million"". Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 12 (4): 323–326. doi:10.2307/3044429. ISSN 0029-0564.
- ^ Eliot, George (1964). Adam Bede; Introd. by Gordon S. Haight. Rinehart.
- ^ Haight, Gordon Sherman (1985). George Eliot : a biography. Internet Archive. London ; New York : Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-016632-3.
- ^ Haight, Gordon Sherman (1991). George Eliot's originals and contemporaries : essays in Victorian literary history and biography. Internet Archive. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-10264-8.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) - ^ Eliot, George; Haight, Gordon Sherman (1954). The George Eliot letters. Internet Archive. New Haven : Yale University Press.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link) - ^ Haight, Gordon S.; VanArsdel, T. (June 18, 1982). George Eliot: A Centenary Tribute. Springer. ISBN 978-1-349-05969-0.
- George Eliot-G. H. Lewes Newsletter (8) April 1986; Memorial Issue for Gordon S. Haight (1901–1985). Contains tributes to Gordon S. Haight by Rosemary Ashton, William Baker, Gillian Beer, David Carroll, Joseph Wiesenfarth, Hugh Witemeyer, and Terence R. Wright.