Leon Edel was Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University. He received both the 1963 Pulitzer Prize and the 1963 National Book Award for the second and third volumes of his seminal five-volume biography of the American novelist and critic Henry James. Edel also edited books on James’s letters, plays, essays, criticism, and stories, and wrote introductions to new editions of James’s novels. In addition to his writings about James, Mr. Edel was the editor of four volumes of Edmund Wilson’s papers, wrote biographies of Willa Cather, Henry David Thoreau, and  a book about the Bloomsbury circle. More about this author >