Laurence Lerner

Laurence Lerner (12 December 1925 – 19 January 2016), often called Larry, was a South African-born British literary critic, poet, novelist, and lecturer, recognized for his achievement with his election to The Royal Society of Literature.[https://rsliterature.org/fellow/laurence-lerner-3/ "Laurence Lerner"] (Fellows Remembered), The Royal Society of Literature accessed 20 April 2022

Biography

Laurence Lerner was born in Cape Town, South Africa; his Jewish father Israel was from Zhitomir, Ukraine and his mother May from Abinger Hammer, England. He was educated at St George's Grammar School, Cape Town, the University of Cape Town and Pembroke College, Cambridge.

He was lecturer in English, from 1949 to 1953 at the University College of the Gold Coast in West Africa, from 1953 to 1962 tutor then lecturer in English at Queen's University Belfast (where one of his students was Seamus Heaney),[https://rsliterature.org/fellow/laurence-lerner-3/ "Laurence Lerner"] (Fellows Remembered), The Royal Society of LiteratureEdwin Lerner,

[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/feb/10/laurence-lerner-obituary "Laurence Lerner obituary"], The Guardian, 10 February 2016. lecturer then reader then professor of English at the University of Sussex (1962–84),[http://www.sussex.ac.uk/cih/1-5-3-3.html]{{dead link |date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}} and Edwin Mims Professor of English at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (1985–95). He won the 1991 Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award.{{Cite web |url=http://www.vanderbilt.edu/publicaffairs/faculty-awards/branscomb/ |title=Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award | Public Affairs | Vanderbilt University |accessdate=28 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612074345/http://www.vanderbilt.edu/publicaffairs/faculty-awards/branscomb/ |archivedate=12 June 2010}}

Lerner taught in many universities around the world in addition to those where he held positions jobs, including Munich, Dijon, various places in the US and Canada, Kashmir, Wurzburg, and Vienna. On British Council lecture tours he traveled to France, Germany, Spain, South America, Turkey and India. These experiences led to his most personal book, Wandering Professor.

Although he described himself as a follower who was surprised to be accepted, Lerner was an active member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), attending Brighton, Nashville and then Lewes meetings. For many years, he taught a Shakespeare summer school at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. He gave the Swarthmore Lecture in 1984 (The Two Cinnas – Quakerism, Revolution and Poetry). He was Clerk to the Lewes meeting for several years. He was also a Governor of Leighton Park School, a Quaker school in England.

He published nine collections of poetry, three novels, ten books of literary criticism, reflections on English language usage and life as a professor, and lectures, essays and poems. He edited two anthologies of modern literary criticism of Shakespeare's plays for Penguin Books, which were widely used by A-level students in the UK.

Personal life

He married Natalie Winch in 1948, whom he met in South Africa. Their marriage lasted until her death in 2014. They had four sons, David and Edwin, born in Accra, Ghana, and Martin and Richard, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.Edwin Lerner, Obituary of Natalie Lerner, [https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/dec/15/natalie-lerner-obituary], The Guardian, 15 December 2014, accessed 20 April 2022.

He died on 19 January 2016 at the age of 90.{{Cite news |url=http://www.sussex.ac.uk/staff/newsandevents/?id=33988 |title=Obituary: Professor Laurence Lerner |last=English |first=School of English |work=The University of Sussex |access-date=2018-01-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160211215133/http://www.sussex.ac.uk/staff/newsandevents/?id=33988 |archive-date=11 February 2016 |url-status=dead}}

Works

=Poetry=

Domestic Interior, Hutchinson, 1959
The Directions of Memory, Chatto & Windus, 1964
Selves, Routledge, 1969 {{ISBN|978-0710064080}}.
{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xTi8nWLHI3YC&q=Laurence+Lerner+sussex&pg=PA68 |title=A.R.T.H.U.R.: the life and opinions of a digital computer |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |year=1975 |isbn=978-0-87023-181-0}}
A.R.T.H.U.R & M.A.R.T.H.A. The loves of the computers, Secker & Warburg, 1980 {{ISBN|978-0436244407}}
The Man I Killed, Secker & Warburg, 1980 {{ISBN|978-0-436245503}}
Chapter & Verse: Bible Poems, Secker & Warburg, 1984 {{ISBN|0-436-24441-1}}
Selected Poems, Secker & Warburg, 1984
Rembrandt's Mirror, Secker & Warburg, 1987 {{ISBN|0-436-24444-6}}

=Fiction=

The Englishman, Hamish Hamilton, 1959
A Free Man, Chatto & Windus, 1968 {{ISBN| 978-0701112677}}
My Grandfather's Grandfather, Secker & Warburg, 1985 {{ISBN|0-436-24443-8}}

= Criticism =

The Truest Poetry: An essay on the Question, What is Literature? Hamish Hamilton, 1960
The Art of George Eliot. A selection of contemporary reviews (including Henry James, George Saintsbury, Geraldine Jewsbury and Sidney Colvin), with John Holstrom, Bodley Head, 1966
The Truthtellers: Jane Austen, George Eliot, D H Lawrence, Chatto & Windus, 1967
The Uses of Nostalgia: Studies in Pastoral, Chatto & Windus, 1972 {{ISBN|0-7011-1826-1}}
An introduction to English poetry: fifteen poems discussed by Laurence Lerner, Edward Arnold, 1975 {{ISBN|978-0-7131-5789-5}}.
The Victorians, Methuen, 1978, {{ISBN|978-0-416-56210-1}}
Love & Marriage: Literature in its Social Context, Edward Arnold, 1979
The Literary Imagination: Essays on Literature & Society, Harvester, 1982
The Frontiers of Literature, Blackwell, 1988
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Angels-Absences-Deaths-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0826512879 Angels and Absences: child deaths in the nineteenth century], Vanderbilt University Press, 1997, {{ISBN|978-0-8265-1287-1}}
{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YYWDR3pX7lEC&q=Laurence+Lerner |title=Reading Women's Poetry |publisher=Sussex Academic Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-84519-337-9}}

=Other works=

Shakespeare's Tragedies; An Anthology of Modern Criticism, Penguin, 1963, ASIN B000GR3A7W
Shakespeare's Comedies; An Anthology of Modern Criticism, Penguin, 1967, ASIN B002R84WZC
[http://www.thedarkhorsemagazine.com/Resources/TheHistoryofAPoem_Lerner.pdf "The History of a Poem"], The Dark Horse, Summer 1997
{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cXmXLi5O2hUC&q=Laurence+Lerner |title=You Can't Say That! English Usage Today |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-521-14097-3}}
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wandering-Professor-Laurence-Lerner/dp/0953630706 Wandering Professor], Caliban, 1999, {{ISBN|0-9536307-0-6}}.