Editing William Howarth

{{Short description|American academic (1940–2023)}}
{{for|the English footballer|William Howarth (footballer)}}
'''William Howarth''' (November 26, 1940 – June 6, 2023) was an American writer and professor emeritus at [[Princeton University]]. He published fourteen books and also wrote for such national periodicals as [[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]], [[Smithsonian]], [[The Washington Post]], [[The New York Times]], and [[The American Scholar]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.princeton.edu/~howarth/|title=William Howarth|last=|first=|date=|website=|publisher=Princeton University|access-date=1 September 2016}}</ref>

Howarth was born in Minneapolis and grew up in Springfield, Illinois, where his father Nelson Howarth was a progressive, civil-rights mayor.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://sangamoncountyhistory.org/wp/?p=6869|title=Nelson Howarth (Springfield Mayor)|last=|first=|date=March 7, 2015|website=SangamonLink|publisher=|access-date=}}</ref> William Howarth received a B.A. from the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign|University of Illinois]] at Champaign-Urbana and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the [[University of Virginia]].

Howarth taught at Princeton from 1966, offering over 60 undergraduate and graduate courses, from "Moby-Dick Unbound" to "Race and Place" and "Darwin in our Time." In 1968 he helped create Princeton's program in Afro-American studies. His teaching has spanned English, American Studies, Environmental Studies, the Center for the Study of Religion, the Davis Center for Historical Studies, and the Freshman Seminars. He advised 100 Ph.D. dissertations and 256 senior theses, and won numerous university awards for research, teaching, and alumni education.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/~howarth/cv.pdf|title=William Howarth|last=|first=|date=|website=|publisher=|access-date=1 September 2016}}</ref>

Howarth began his career as a specialist in American literary manuscripts and [[textual criticism]], and in 1972 he became editor in chief of ''[[The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau]]''.  In 1974-75 he served as [http://www.thoreausociety.org/about/presidents 21st president] of the [[Thoreau Society]]. He published eight books on Thoreau, covering his studies of maps, landscapes, and North American travels. His account of Thoreau as writer, ''[[The Book of Concord]]'', is the first critical history of Thoreau's two-million-word ''Journal''.

Howarth later expanded his studies in literary nonfiction to include the fields of autobiography, journalism, trans-Atlantic romanticism, and the literature of place and travel. His critical anthology, ''The John McPhee Reader'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=The John McPhee Reader|last=McPhee|first=John|date=1982-06-01|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=9780374517199|editor-last=Howarth|editor-first=William L.|location=New York|language=English}}</ref> is the first study of [[John McPhee]] as literary artist, and it remains a standard text in journalism history.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Top%20100%20page.htm|title=The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century|last=Stephens|first=Mitchell|website=|publisher=New York University|access-date=1 September 2016}}</ref>

Howarth was a founding member of the [[Princeton Environmental Institute]] and among the earliest scholars to define and explore the field of literary [[ecocriticism]]. His essay "Some Principles of Ecocriticism" describes the origins and evolution of this field from early work in ecology, ethics, language, criticism, geography, natural and social sciences, history, literature, American studies, and media.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Some Principles of Ecocriticism|last=Howarth|first=William|publisher=University of Georgia Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0820317816|location=Athens, GA|pages=69–91}}</ref> He long served on the editorial boards of [[Environmental history|Environmental History]], [[Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment]], and was chairman of the board for [https://www.chicagotribune.com/2011/03/09/the-center-for-american-places-at-columbia-college-chicago/ The Center for American Places].

His first venture into fiction, the historical novel [[Deep Creek (2010 novel)|''Deep Creek'']], written with [[Anne Matthews]] under the joint pen name {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090805081107/http://www.dana-hand.com/ Dana Hand]}}, was selected by the ''Washington Post'' as one of the best novels of 2010.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121003240_pf.html|title=The Best Novels of 2010|last=|first=|date=17 December 2010|website=|publisher=|access-date=1 September 2016}}</ref>

Howarth died on June 6, 2023, at the age of 82.<ref>{{cite web |title=William Howarth, eminent Thoreau scholar, pioneer in the environmental humanities and ‘remarkable mentor,’ dies at 82 |url=https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/06/20/william-howarth-eminent-thoreau-scholar-pioneer-environmental-humanities-and |website=Princetone University |access-date=20 June 2023}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.princeton.edu/~howarth William Howarth home page]
*[https://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/08/0616/emeritus/ Princeton Alumni Weekly: June 16, 2008]
*[https://dof.princeton.edu/about/clerk-faculty/emeritus/william-louis-howarth Princeton University emeritus page]
*{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090805081107/http://www.dana-hand.com/ Dana Hand home page]}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Howarth, William}}
[[Category:1940 births]]
[[Category:2023 deaths]]
[[Category:American male writers]]
[[Category:Princeton University faculty]]
[[Category:Writers from Springfield, Illinois]]
[[Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni]]
[[Category:University of Virginia alumni]]