Howard Paton Vincent (1904–1985) was an American scholar of American literature who taught at Kent State University from 1961 until his retirement in 1975. He is best known for his scholarship on Herman Melville and activity in the Melville revival of the 1940s and 1950s. He was also an authority on Honore Daumier.[1]
In 1975, colleagues published a festschrift, Artful Thunder: Versions of the Romantic Tradition in American Literature in Honor of Howard P. Vincent [2] In it, Harvard University professor Henry A. Murray wrote that "without your plenitude of heart and intellect, sparkling, bubbling, and overflowing generously and delectably for more than three decades, the Melvillians of our land would be less plentiful than they patently are today, less zealous, less knowledgeable, and less prolific."[3] His 1949 study, The Trying-Out of Moby Dick was called "the most useful of the critical studies" of the post-war years. [4]
Vincent was three-time Fulbright lecturer in Europe, and served as director of library services for the United States Information Service in France.[5][6]