Van Doren, Carl (Clinton)

Van Doren, Carl (Clinton), 1885–1950, American editor and author, b. Hope, Vermilion co., Ill., grad. Univ. of Illinois, 1907, Ph.D. Columbia, 1911; brother of Mark Van Doren. He lectured at Columbia from 1911 and was an associate in English until 1930. He was literary editor of the Nation (1919–22) and Century Magazine (1922–25), managing editor of The Cambridge History of American Literature (1917–21) and editor of the Literary Guild (1926–34). His writings include critical works, such as Many Minds (1924), American Literature: an Introduction (1933), a study of Sinclair Lewis (1933), and The American Novel, 1789–1939 (1940); fiction, such as The Ninth Wave (1926); historical works, such as his Secret History of the American Revolution (1941) and The Great Rehearsal (1948); and biographies, such as those of Thomas Love Peacock (1911), Jonathan Swift (1930), and Benjamin Franklin (1938; Pulitzer Prize).

Bibliography

See his autobiography, Three Worlds (1936).