Morton Norton Cohen (27 February 192112 June 2017) was a Canadian-born American author and scholar who was a professor at

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

. He is best known for his studies of children's author

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

including the 1995 biography '' Lewis Carroll: A Biography''.

Life

Morton Norton Cohen was born on 27 February 1921 in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

, Alberta. His family moved to

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Quebec, and then to

Revere, Massachusetts Revere (, ) is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Located approximately northeast of Downtown Boston, Revere is the terminus of the Blue Line (MBTA), MBTA Blue Line, with three stations located within the city: Wonderland station, Wonderla ...

. He taught English at

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

and the City College and the

Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public university, public research institution and post-graduate university, postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Divi ...

of the City University of New York. In addition to his work on Charles Dodgson, he produced studies of Henry Rider Haggard,

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

and other

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

subjects, as well as children's literature, travel articles and fiction. He was elected a fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

in 1996."Prof Morton N Cohen, FRSL".

Debrett's Debrett's () is a British professional coaching company and publisher and authority on etiquette and behaviour, founded in 1769 with the publication of the first edition of ''The New Peerage''. The company takes its name from its founder, John ...

. Retrieved 9 September 2010. The

Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association of America, often referred to as the Modern Language Association (MLA), is widely considered the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. The MLA aims to "str ...

set up the biennial Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters in 1989. The first award was given in 1991. Under the terms of the award, the "winning collection will be one that provides readers with a clear, accurate, and readable text; necessary background information; and succinct and eloquent introductory material and annotations. The edited collection should be in itself a work of literature.""Prizes and awards made to the Darwin Correspondence Project and its founding editor"
. darwinproject.ac.uk (Darwin Correspondence Project). Retrieved 9 September 2010. Cohen died on 12 June 2017 in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, New York.

Selected works

* ''H. Rider Haggard, His Life and Works'' – PhD thesis, Columbia University, issued 1958 in microfilm * ''Rider Haggard: His Life and Works'' (London: Hutchinson, 1960) * ''Rudyard Kipling to Rider Haggard: The Record of a Friendship'' (Hutchinson, 1965) * ''The Letters of Lewis Carroll'', 2 vols., ed. Cohen with the assistance of Roger Lancelyn Green (Oxford University Press, 1979) * ''Lewis Carroll, Photographer of Children: Four Nude Studies'' (Rosenbach Foundation/Clarkson N. Potter, 1979) * ''Lewis Carroll and the Kitchins'' (Argosy Bookstore, 1980) * ''Lewis Carroll and Alice 1832-1982'' (Pierpont Morgan Library, 1982) * ''The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll'', edited by Cohen (London: Macmillan, 1982); (London: Papermac, 1996) * ''Lewis Carroll and the House of Macmillan'', ed. Cohen and Anita Gandolfo (Cambridge University Press, 1987) * ''Lewis Carroll: Interviews and Recollections'', ed. Cohen (University of Iowa Press, 1989) * ''Lewis Carroll: A Biography'' (Macmillan, 1995) * ''Reflections in a Looking Glass: A Centennial Celebration of Lewis Carroll, Photographer'' (New York: Aperture, 1998) * ''Lewis Carroll & His Illustrators: Collaborations and Correspondence, 1865–1898'', ed. Cohen and Edward Wakeling (Macmillan, 2003)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Morton N. 1921 births 2017 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature American male biographers City College of New York faculty Writers from Calgary West Virginia University faculty Syracuse University faculty Rutgers University faculty Canadian emigrants to the United States Historians from New York (state) 20th-century American biographers