He is internationally known for his work in editing the work and manuscript materials of William Wordsworth and W. B. Yeats: he has supervised the Cornell University Press editions of Wordsworth and Yeats. He is the 2013 recipient of the M. L. Rosenthal Award for distinguished contributions to Yeats studies.
Retirement
After moving to a senior living community in Seattle, he helped found and served first as Designer and then as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the community newsletter, The Mirabella Monthly. In each of the years 2017-2023, the newsletter received an APEX Award "For Excellence in Publishing" from Communications Concepts: Best Practices in Print, Web & ePublishing. Curtis independently published a book of walks in Seattle in 2014. His poems have appeared in the medical journal Pharos, a publication of the Alpha Omega Honor Medical Society.
Works
Wordsworth's experiments with tradition; the lyric poems of 1802, with texts of the poems based on early manuscripts, Cornell University Press, 1971. ISBN978-0-8014-0662-1
(ed.) Poems in two volumes, and other poems, 1800–1807, by William Wordsworth, Cornell University Press, 1983. ISBN0-8014-1445-8
(ed.) The Fenwick Notes of William Wordsworth, Bristol Classical Press, 1993; rev. ed., Humanities Ebooks, 2007. ISBN978-1-84760-004-2
(co-ed.) Early Poems and Fragments, 1785–1797, by William Wordsworth, Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN0-8014-3318-5[1]
(ed.) Last Poems, 1821–1850, by William Wordsworth, Cornell University Press, 1999. ISBN0-8014-3625-7
(ed.) The Land of Heart's Desire: manuscript materials, by W. B. Yeats, Cornell University Press, 2002. ISBN0-8014-4048-3
(ed.) "Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus: manuscript materials, by W. B. Yeats, Cornell University Press, 2008. ISBN978-0-8014-4703-7
"The Cornell Wordsworth: a supplement", Humanities–Ebooks, 2008. ISBN978-1-84760-092-9
(co-ed.) "The Resurrection: manuscript materials", by W. B. Yeats, Cornell University Press, 2011. ISBN978-0-8014-5013-6
(co-ed.) On Baile's Strand: manuscript materials, by W. B. Yeats, Cornell University Press, ISBN978-0-8014-5261-1