Richard Ellmann

Richard Ellmann
Photo of Richard Ellmann
Born
Richard David Ellmann

(1918-03-15)March 15, 1918
DiedMay 13, 1987(1987-05-13) (aged 69)
Occupations
  • Literary critic
  • biographer
SpouseMary Ellmann
Children3, including Lucy Ellmann

Richard David Ellmann, FBA (March 15, 1918 – May 13, 1987) was an American literary critic and biographer of the Irish writers James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and William Butler Yeats. He won the U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction for James Joyce (1959),[1] one of the most acclaimed literary biographies of the 20th century. Its 1982 revised edition won James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Ellmann was a liberal humanist, and his academic work focuses on the major modernist writers of the 20th century.