Death of Dr. Thompson, English Literature

Dr. Craig Thompson, Felix E. Schelling Professor Emeritus of English, died at the Quadrangle in Haverford on October 4, at the age of 85.

A leading scholar of the Renaissance and a noted translator of the work of Erasmus, Dr. Thompson came to Penn as the Schelling Professor in 1969.

He was known for his graduate seminars in Renaissance literature, as well as for his meticulous scholarship, throughout his career here. He became emeritus professor in 1978.

Prior to his appointment at to Penn, he taught at Cornell, 1937-42 and 1947, and at Yale, 1943-45; he was associate professor of English at Elmira College, 1945-46, and was at Lawrence University, as associate professor, 1945-46, and as professor, 1950-60. He was librarian and professor of English and history at Haverford College from 1960 to 1968.

Dr. Thompson took his A.B. magna cum laude from Dickinson College in 1933. He took his M.A. in 1935 and his Ph.D. in 1937, both from Princeton. where he was a fellow, 1935-36, and a Procter fellow, 1936-37. He received an honorary Litterarum doctor degree from Dickinson College in 1966 and an honorary Master of Arts from Penn in 1970.

Elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1980, Dr. Thompson was also a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and served as president of the American Society for Reformation Research in 1965. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1942, 1954, 1955, and 1968, and received several research grants from Folger Shakespeare Library, where he served as a special consultant in 1957-58.

Among Dr. Thompson's numerous contributions on Erasmus were two volumes of The Collected Works of Erasmus (nos. 23 and 24) published in 1978, and his translation and annotation of volumes 39 and 40 of the same series, known as The Colloquies.

Dr. Thompson is survived by his wife, Isabaella; two sons, Allan and James; two granddaughters, Cynthia and Susan; and a brother, David. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the University of Pennsylvania Library.


Almanac

Volume 43 Number 8
October 15, 1996


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