George Remington Havens

Portrait of George R. Havens

George Remington Havens (25 August 1890, Shelter Island Heights, New York – 28 September 1977, Columbus, Ohio) was an American professor of French. His publications on French literature focussed on Voltaire and Rousseau.[1][2]

Biography

Havens graduated from Amherst College in 1913. In 1917 he received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University with thesis The Abbé Prévost and English literature[1] (published in 1921).[3] He married Edith Louise Curtiss (known as "Louise") on 18 July 1917 in Los Angeles. From 1917 to 1919[4] he served as a naval officer in the United States Fleet Reserve and attained the rank of second lieutenant.[1]

Havens was a professor of French at Ohio State University from 1919 to 1961, when he retired as professor emeritus. During various summers, he taught at a number of universities, including the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University.[1]

He enjoyed a national and international reputation in the field of eighteenth-century French studies.[1]

Havens made two trips to Leningrad, one in 1927 and the other in 1930, to study Voltaire's books housed in the National Library of Russia.[2][5][6] He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1929–1930. He received honorary doctorates from Ohio State University and University of Michigan.[1]

Havens called his wife "his first and best of readers". She survived him by about three months.[1]

Selected publications

  • as editor: Selections from Voltaire with explanatory comment upon his life and works, New York/London 1925, 1930; New York 1969
  • Voltaire's Marginalia on the pages of Rousseau. A comparative study of ideas, Columbus 1933, reprint, New York 1966, 1971
  • as editor: Voltaire, Candide, ou, L’optimisme, New York 1934, 1969
  • as editor: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur les sciences et les arts, New York 1946
  • as editor with Donald F. Bond: The eighteenth century, Syracuse, New York 1951 (series A critical bibliography of French literature with general editor David Clark Cabeen, vol. 4)
  • The age of ideas. From reaction to revolution in eighteenth-century France, New York 1955,[7] 1965
  • as editor with Norman L. Torrey: Voltaire's catalogue of his library at Ferney, Geneva 1959
  • Frederick J. Waugh. American marine painter, Orono, Maine 1969 (See Frederick Judd Waugh.)
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Boston 1978

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Spurlin, Paul M. (1978). "George Remington Havens (1890-1977)". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 12 (2): 277–279. JSTOR 2738059.
  2. ^ a b Havens, George Remington (1971). Voltaire's Marginalia on the Pages of Rousseau. p. vii.
  3. ^ Havens, George Remington (1921). The Abbé Prévost and English Literature. Princeton University Press.
  4. ^ "George Remington Havens, World War I Service". familysearch.org.
  5. ^ Havens, George R.; Torrey, Norman L. (1928). "The Private Library of Voltaire at Leningrad". PMLA. 43 (4): 990–1009. doi:10.2307/457597. JSTOR 457597. S2CID 163919133.
  6. ^ Havens, George R.; Torrey, Norman L. (1929). "Voltaire's Books: A Selected List". Modern Philology. 27 (1): 1–22. doi:10.1086/387799. ISSN 0026-8232. S2CID 162201926.
  7. ^ Crocker, Lester G. (1957). "Review of The Age of Ideas by George R. Havens". The Journal of Modern History. 29 (2): 125–126. doi:10.1086/238001. ISSN 0022-2801.