William C. Brownell
From Philosopedia.org
William C. Brownell (30 August 1851 - 22 July 1928)
William Crary Brownell, who was born in New York, graduated in 1871 from Amherst College. An art and literary critic, he wrote for The New York World from 1871 to 1879 and from 1879 to 1881 was on the staff of The Nation.
From 1888 until 1926 he was a literary advisor for Charles Scribner's Sons at a time when Arthur Hawley Scribner was President of the publishing firm.
Brownell married Virginia S. Swinburne in 1878 and, after her death in 1911, married Gertrude Hall.
In 1889 he published an essay in comparative criticism, "French Traits," followed in 1892 by French Art (1892), Newport (1896), Victorian Prose Masters (1901),m and American Prose Masters (1909).
Brownell was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, as pointed out in Edith Wharton's A Backward Glance, was considered one of the finest literary men of his age.
(See entry for neo-classical humanism, a movement in the 1920s and into the 1930s in which Brownell played a major role.)
