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Article: It Happened in Northampton.(The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal)(Review)
- Article from:
- The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide
- Article date:
- September 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, A Literary Life Shattered by Scandal
Barry Werth
Doubleday. 325 pages, $26.
NEWTON Arvin's name is one that even the most assiduous reader of gay literature may not have encountered. A literature professor at Smith College in the middle decades of the 20th century, Arvin wrote literary biographies and criticism, was a Hawthorne scholar--hence this book's title--and won the National Book Award in 1951 for his biography of Melville. He was praised for both his erudition and his writing style by fellow critics, such as Edmund Wilson and Granville Hicks, who were also friends. However, his status as the subject ...