Edwin Sill Fussell, Ph.D. (July 4, 1922 – August 27, 2002) was a professor of English literature at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

. He was the elder brother of

Paul Fussell Paul Fussell Jr. (22 March 1924 – 23 May 2012) was an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of topics, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary ...

Early life

Fussell was born in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

, United States, and grew up there. His father, Paul Longstreth Fussell (15 January 1895 – 16 July 1973), was a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles with the firm of O’Melveny & Myers. His mother was born Wilhma Wilson Sill in Illinois 21 August 1893 and died 23 March 1971. In 1943 Fussell earned a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

degree from

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...

. Thereafter he joined the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

, serving aboard a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

in the Pacific Theater of Operations during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He received a Ph.D. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1949.

Career

Fussell first taught at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

. He refused to sign a

loyalty oath Loyalty is a Fixation (psychology), devotion to a country, philosophy, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another human being can be the obj ...

during the era of Sen.

Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican Party (United States), Republican United States Senate, U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age ...

's "communist-hunting" in the early 1950s, losing his professorship as a result. Fussell then went to Pomona College, his alma mater, where he taught American Literature. After teaching at the

Claremont Graduate School The Claremont Graduate University (CGU) is a private, all-graduate research university in Claremont, California, United States. Founded in 1925, CGU is a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium which includes five undergraduate and two grad ...

, Fussell joined the faculty of UC San Diego. He retired in 1991.

Retirement

During his retirement, Fussell lived in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. He still wrote, especially about

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, Chateaubriand, and Balzac. Fussell died in August 2002 in La Jolla, CA.

Works

*''Frontier: American Literature and the American West'' (1966) *''Lucifer in Harness:American Meter, Metaphor, and Diction'' (1973) *''The Catholic Side of Henry James'' (1994) Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 1994. *''The French Side of Henry James'' (1990)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fussell, Edwin 20th-century American educators Harvard University alumni University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty University of California, San Diego faculty People from Pasadena, California 1922 births 2002 deaths Pomona College alumni Pomona College faculty 20th-century American male writers United States Navy personnel of World War II