Joseph Leon Edel

Joseph Leon Edel (Joseph Leon Edel) , 1907-97, American literary scholar and biographer, b. Pittsburgh, Pa. A professor at New York Univ. (1953-72) and the Univ. of Hawaii (1972-78), he received the 1963 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for part of his definitive biography of Henry James (5 vol., 1953-72). He was also a coeditor of The Complete Notebooks of Henry James (1986) and edited several books of James's letters, plays, esays, criticism, and stories. Edel's other works include James Joyce: The Last Journey (1947) and Bloomsbury: A House of Lions (1979). His Wartime Memoir was published posthumously in 2001.

Edel, [Joseph] Leon (1907–1997), born in Pittsburgh but educated at McGill University, Toronto (M.A., 1928), and the University of Paris (Litt.D., 1932), served as a journalist before entering an academic career in 1950 as a professor at New York University. He is particularly known for his scholarly work on Henry James, including various editions such as The Complete Plays (1949) and the Complete Tales (12 vols., 1963–65) and selected Letters (2 vols., 1974–75), but particularly for his authoritative Life (5 vols., 1953–72), which won a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for two of its volumes. A one‐volume version was published in 1985. Edel's other works include a study of Joyce (1947), The Modern Psychological Novel (1955), Literary Biography (1957), Bloomsburg, A House of Lions (1979), Stuff of Sleep and Dreams: Experiments in Literary Psychology (1982), and, with E.K. Brown, Willa Cather (1953). Works he has edited include the Papers (1972) of Edmund Wilson.