Karl Beckson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Beckson (born February 4, 1926 in New York) is an American author of numerous articles and sixteen books on British literature, culture, and authors including Oscar Wilde, Arthur Symons, and Henry Harland. He is also the co-author with Arthur Ganz of Literary Terms: A Dictionary, now in its fourth printing.
[edit] Life
Born and raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Beckson obtained his first library card at the 96th Street branch of the New York Public Library. At age 17, he volunteered for the United States Navy, serving aboard the destroyer, USS Ross (DD-563), the only ship in U.S. naval history to survive two underwater mine explosions (Leyte Gulf, South Pacific). He graduated with a B.A., English, from University of Arizona and a Ph.D. from Columbia University where he studied with Lionel Trilling, Mark Van Doren, and William York Tindall. Professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, for over 40 years, he retired in 2002. He has been married since 1958 and has two sons.
[edit] Bibliography
- Literary Terms: A Dictionary; Farrar Strauss and Giroux, 1960.
- Great Theories in Literary Criticism; Farrar Strauss and Company, 1963.
- Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970.
- Max and Will; Edited by Mary Lago and Karl Beckson; Harvard University Press, 1975.
- The Memoirs of Arthur Symons: Life and Art in the 1890s; The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977.
- Henry Harland: His Life and Work; The Eighteen Nineties Society, 1978.
- Oscar Wilde: A Memoir by Theodore Wrattislaw; Forward by Sir John Betjeman; Introduction and Notes by Karl Beckson; The Eighteen Nineties Society, 1979.
- Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890's: An Anthology of British Poetry and Prose; Academy Chicago, 1981.
- Arthur Symons: A Life; Clarendon Press, 1987.
- Arthur Symons: Selected Letters 1880-1935; Edited by Karl Beckson and John M. Munro; The MacMillan Press, 1989.
- Arthur Symons: A Bibliography; Edited by Karl Beckson, Ian Fletcher, Lawrence W. Markert, John Stokes; ELT Press, 1990;
- London in the Eighteen Nineties: A Cultural History; W.W. Norton, 1992.
- I Can Resist Everything Except Temptation and other Quotations from Oscar Wilde; Columbia University Press, 1996.
- The Oscar Wilde Encyclopedia; Forward by Merlin Holland; AMS Press, 1998.
- The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde; Edited by Bobby Fong and Karl Beckson; Oxford University Press, 2000.
- The Religion of Art: A Modernist Theme in British Literature; AMS Press, 2006 (forthcoming).