Education
Clyde graduated in 1929, and the next year married Martha Harris, a mathematics teacher at JBU. In 1938, he earned his Doctor of Philosophy by correspondence from New York University.
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Clyde Samuel Kilby
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Kilby"s parents, James Lafayette and Sophronia Kilby, lived along the Nolichuckey River in the north portion of East Tennessee"s hill country. The youngest of eight children, he was the first of his family to graduate from college. While studying at the University of Arkansas, he worked part-time in the registrar"s office at nearby John Brown University.
They moved to Minnesota, where Kilby earned a master"s degree in 1931 from the University of Minnesota.
In 1935, Kilby moved to Wheaton, Illinois, where he became an assistant professor of English. He became chair of the English department at Wheaton in 1951, a post he retained until 1966.
Doctor Kilby retired from teaching at Wheaton in 1981, and retired to Columbus, Mississippi, his wife"s hometown, where he died on October 18, 1986. There is a Clyde South. Kilby Chair at Wheaton College (currently Leland Ryken). and Inkling scholarship He then read all of " works, designed a popular course around the mythopoetic works of and Tolkien, and began a long-term correspondence with that lasted until the author"s death in 1963.
The fourteen letters of his correspondence with became the core of a collection of papers on first, then the Inklings, and finally a set of seven connected British authors: Owen Barfield G. K. Chesterton C. South. George MacDonald Dorothy L. Sayers J. R. R. Tolkien Charles Williams This collection developed into the Marion East. Wade Center at Wheaton College, today a major resource for twentieth-century British literature scholarship.
Kilby"s portrait hangs in the Kilby Reading Room at the Wade Center, along with a plaque which reads in part: Doctor Kilby"s career in the world of literature was a distinguished one. Mistress Kilby"s lively interest, wise counsel, and dedicated work were the foundation for everything that Doctor Kilby did. Together, Clyde and Martha Kilby challenged generations of Wheaton students and others to seek the world of the imagination with all their heart and mind.
1971: Tolkien and The Silmarillion 1984: Mythlore #10 "The Outer Dimension of Myth" 1995: Myth, Allegory and Gospel "Mythic and Christian Elements in Tolkien".
Achievements
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Born
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Died
October 18, 1986 (aged 84) -
Nationality
American -
Religion
Christianity