Fredson Bowers
Fredson Thayer Bowers was an American bibliographer and scholar of textual editing.Life
Bowers was a graduate of Brown University and Harvard University. He taught at Princeton University before moving to the University of Virginia in 1938.
Bowers served as a commander in the United States Navy during World War II leading a group of codebreakers.
In 1947 he led a group of faculty and interested local citizens in founding the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, of which he served as president for many years. He founded its annual publication, Studies in Bibliography, which became a leading journal in the field.
Bowers was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1958.
In 1969 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Bibliographical Society.
He retired in 1975 and at the time of his death, he was Linden Kent Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Virginia. His second wife, novelist Nancy Hale, died before him in 1988. Bowers had three sons and a daughter with his first wife: Fredson Bowers, Jr., Stephen, Peter, and Joan.
