Van Wyck Brooks (February 16, 1886 – May 2, 1963) was an American literary critic, biographer, and historian.
Biography
Brooks was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1886 and graduated from Harvard University in 1908. As a student he published his first book, a collection of poetry called Verses by Two Undergraduates, co-written with his friend John Hall Wheelock.
Brooks's best-known work is a series of studies entitled Makers and Finders (five volumes, 1936–1952), which chronicled the development of American literature during the long 19th century. Brooks embroidered elaborate biographical detail into anecdotal prose. For The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 (1936) he won the second National Book Award for Non-Fiction from the American Booksellers Association and the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for History. The book was also included in Life magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–1944.
Brooks was a long-time resident of Bridgewater, Connecticut, which built a town library wing in his name. Although a decade-long fund-raising effort was abandoned in 1972, a hermit in Los Angeles, Charles E. Piggott, with no connection to Bridgewater surprised the town by leaving money for the library in his will. With $210,000 raised, the library addition went up in 1980.
Among his works, the book The Ordeal of Mark Twain (1920) analyzes the literary progression of Samuel L. Clemens and attributes shortcomings to Clemens's mother and wife. In 1925 he published a translation from French of the 1920 biography of Henry David Thoreau by Leon Bazalgette, entitled Henry Thoreau, Bachelor of Nature.
His influential 1918 essay "On Creating a Usable Past" argued that the United States lacked its own coherent cultural arts tradition. Historian Constance Rourke engaged his claim and set out to show a unique American tradition.
In 1944, Brooks was on the cover of Time Magazine.
He died in Bridgewater, Connecticut, from cancer on May 2, 1963.
Awards and honors
Brooks was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1939. In 1949, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Places named after him
The Van Wyck Brooks Historic District, known for its old Victorian and Second French Empire style buildings in Plainfield, the town of his birth, is named after him.
Prizes
1937: Pulitzer Prize in history and National Book Award for 1936 nonfiction
1938: Goldmedaille des Limited Editions Club
1944: Carey Thomas Award for The World of Washington Irving
1946: Gold medal of National Institute of Arts and Letters (American Academy of Arts and Letters)
1953: Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal
1954: Huntington Hartford Foundation Award
1957: Secondary Education Board Award for Helen Keller: Sketch for a Portrait
Honorary degrees
Doctor of Letters:
Boston University
Bowdoin College
Columbia University
Dartmouth College
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Harvard University
Northeastern Illinois University
Tufts University
Union College
University of Pennsylvania
Doctor of Humane Letters:
Northwestern University