From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basil Willey (1897-1978) was a professor of English literature at Cambridge University and a prolific author of well-written and scholarly works on English literature and intellectual history.

[edit] Life

He was born in England in 1897 and educated at Cambridge University.

He became a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1935.

He was appointed King Edward VII Professor of English Literature in 1946.

He served as President of Pembroke College from 1958 to 1964.

He retired from his position as King Edward VII Professor of English Literature in 1965.

[edit] Published works

• Tendencies in Renaissance Literary Theory (1922)
• The Seventeenth Century Background (1934)
• The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period (1940)
• Nineteenth Century Studies: Coleridge to Matthew Arnold (1949)
• Christianity Past and Present (1952)
• More nineteenth century studies: A group of honest doubters (1956)
• The Religion of Nature (1957)
• Darwin and Butler: Two Versions of Evolution (1960)
• The English Moralists (1964) A review of this book in the New York Review of Books is available online at [1]
• Cambridge and other memories, 1920-1953 (1969)
• Religion to-day (1969)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1973)

[edit] See also

• The English Mind: Studies in the English Moralists Presented to Basil Willey by Hugh Sykes Davies and George Watson (1964)