Leo Lemay

Joseph Alberic Leo Lemay ( born January 17, 1935 in Bristow, Virginia, † 15 October 2008 ) was an American literary scholar, who is particularly emerged with work on early American literature.

Life

Lemay, son of a steel worker, grew up in Maryland and studied for his degree at the University of Maryland (BA 1957, MA 1962). His Ph.D. he obtained in 1965 at the University of Pennsylvania. 1965-77 he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1975, he held a full professorship there. In 1977 he accepted a position at the University of Delaware, where he was DuPont Winterthur Professor of English Language and Literature.

Lemay has written numerous works on American literature from the colonial period and the early republic. Opposite the since Perry Miller latest dominant representation of this matter, which focuses on the Puritans of New England, Lemay underlined the importance of the literature of the southern states and the middle colonies such as Pennsylvania and Maryland. His particular interest was Benjamin Franklin. In 1981 he published together with P.M. Zall up today authoritative historical- critical edition of Franklin's autobiography, for the Library of America he got a two-volume selection of Franklin's major works. Most recently, he worked at a term of seven volumes Biography Franklin, of which he could finish, however, only 3 volumes until his death in 2008. Many of the sources he has studied in the course of his research, he has on his website since 1997 Benjamin Franklin: A Documentary History published.

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