Wilson, Edmund (1895-1972), an American author, wrote about a wide variety of subjects. He became known for important works in literary criticism, Biblical studies, history, literature, and political science.
Wilson’s many books reflect his broad interests. He learned Russian to do research on Travels in Two Democracies (1936) and, later, A Window on Russia (1972). He mastered Hebrew to do research for Scrolls from the Dead Sea (1955). Some of his books reflect his broad knowledge of cultural, social, and historical subjects. They include To the Finland Station (1940), Apologies to the Iroquois (1960), and Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962).
Wilson’s first work of literary criticism, Axel’s Castle (1931), is a study of the symbolist movement in literature. The Wound and the Bow (1941) examines the writings of noted European and American authors. Many of Wilson’s magazine essays and reviews were collected in Classics and Commercials (1950), The Shores of Light (1952), and American Earthquake (1958). Wilson wrote one novel, I Thought of Daisy (1929).
Wilson was born on May 8, 1895, in Red Bank, New Jersey. At his death on June 12, 1972, Wilson left over 2,000 pages of notes. Five volumes of these notes were published as The Twenties (1975), The Thirties (1980), The Forties (1983), The Fifties (1986), and The Sixties (1993).
