James Albert Harrison

Background

James Albert Harrison was born on August 21, 1848, at Pass Christian, Mississippi, United States. His father, James P. Harrison, a prosperous and influential lawyer, was of that Virginia family which gave a signer to the Declaration of Independence and two presidents to the Union; his mother, Mary Thurston, came of a family almost equally distinguished in the colonial history of Virginia.

Education

Young Harrison received his preparatory education in private schools in New Orleans and in 1866 entered the University of Virginia, where he pursued for two years advanced courses in Latin, Greek, and the modern languages. An invincible distaste for mathematics prevented his applying for any academic degree. The next two years, 1868-1870, he gave to study in Europe, mainly in Germany, at Bonn and Munich.

Career

Almost immediately after his return in 1871, James Harrison was elected professor of modern languages in Randolph-Macon College. Five years later, 1876, he was called to Washington and Lee University as professor of English and modern languages. Accepting a call from his alma mater in 1895, Harrison became professor of Romanic and Germanic languages at the University of Virginia, and in 1897 was made head of the newly created School of Teutonic Languages. His lectures, carefully written out in full, were frequently enlivened by a quaint humor, and though often overornate in style, drew their content from a linguistic scholarship as broad as it was profound and accurate.

A pioneer in Old-English scholarship in America, he published in 1883 a volume containing Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburgh, edited in collaboration with Professor Robert Sharp on the basis of Heyne’s German edition. For many years this remained the only American edition. In 1884 appeared in Anglia his study of American-negro English. In collaboration with W. M. Baskerville he published an Anglo-Saxon Prose Reader, for Beginners (1898) and a Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon Poetry (1900). He was also for many years one of the etymological editors for the Century and Standard dictionaries, a frequent contributor of reviews to the press, and an editor of French and German classics for classroom use.

Harrison also published several books of a popular character, including: A Group of Poets and Their Haunts (1874); Greek Vignettes (1877) ; Spain in Profile (1879); A History of Spain (1883); The Story of Greece (1885). Of similar popular nature, though not originating in European travel, are Autrefois, a Collection of Creole Tales (1885) and George Washington: Patriot, Soldier, Statesman (1906). His last publication was The Last Letters of Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Helen Whitman, issued in 1909. In that year failing health necessitated his retirement on the Carnegie Foundation. The remaining two years of his life were spent in Charlottesville, Virginia, in feeble health and almost total blindness. He died January 31, 1911, and was buried in Lexington, Virginia.

Achievements

• James Harrison’s major achievement was his work as editor in chief of the Virginia Edition of Poe (17 vols. , 1902). This edition presented a scientifically corrected text of Poe's previously collected works and added nearly four volumes of hitherto uncollected critical articles, thus offering new material for the study of Poe’s critical faculty. Volume I of the edition, the biography, was written by Harrison and brought much new material from sources first available to him.

Works

More photos

• book

  • George Washington : patriot, soldier, statesman, first president of the United States

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Spain

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Greek vignettes. A sail in the Greek seas, summer of 1877

    ( About the Book Greece is considered to be the cradle of...)

  • Beówulf, an Anglo-Saxon poem. The fight at Finnsburh, a fragment. With text and glossary on the basis of M. Heyne. Edited, corr., and enl. by James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp

    (This book an EXACT reproduction of the original book publ...)

  • A Handy Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Based on Groschopp's Grein

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Harrison And Blackwell's Easy Lessons In French...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Life of Edgar Allan Poe: V. 1

Membership

Harrison was a member of the American philological association.

Interests

• During his vacation Harrison was an indefatigable traveler, and he came to be completely at home in any country of Europe save Russia.

Connections

In 1887 Harrison married Elizabeth Letcher, daughter of John Letcher, governor of Virginia during the Civil War.

Father:

James Payne Harrison

Mother:

Sidney Ann (Norton) Harrison

Spouse:

Elizabeth (Letcher) Harrison

Son:

James Albert Harrison

Son:

William Harrison

Son:

John Letcher Harrison

References

• Who's Who in America 1908-1909