Leslie Alexis Marchand

Background

Leslie Alexis Marchand was born on February 13, 1900, in Bridgeport, Washington, District of Columbia, United States. He was the son of Alexis and Clara Adele (Buckingham) Marchand.

Education

Marchand studied journalism at the University of Washington, graduating with a B.A. in 1922 and a M.A. in 1923. In 1929, Marchand received a PhD at Columbia University.

Career

From 1920 to 1923, Marchand worked as an assistant in English at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. From 1923 to 1927, he was a professor of English and French at Alaska Agricultural College and School Mines (now U. Alaska) in Fairbanks, Alaska. In 1924, he was an instructor at the University of Washington in Seattle, and in 1925, he became a visiting professor there.

From 1928 to 1934, Marchand was an extension teacher of English at Columbia University in New York, from 1929 to 1931, he became an instructor there, and from 1936 to 1937, he became lecturer. From 1937 to 1942, Leslie worked as an instructor at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and from 1942 to 1946, he became an assistant professor there, and from 1953 to 1966, he became a professor.

From 1945 to 1946, then in 1949, Marchand was visiting professor at Columbia University, then, from 1946 to 1953, he became associate professor at Rutgers University. From 1958 to 1959, Leslie was a Fulbright professor at the University of Athens in Greece, and from 1960 to 1962, he was a lecturer of English at Hunter College.

From 1962 to 1963, he was a visiting professor at New York University, and from 1966 to 1967, at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Achievements

• Leslie A. Marchand's main area of study was the work of the nineteenth-century poet George Gordon, Lord Byron. Marchand wrote a three-volume biography of Byron and twelve more volumes on Byron’s letters. Many critics considered the works seminal studies of the author, if only because they were so thoroughly researched and well written. Marchand restored some of Byron’s writings to their original form after them having been censored for decades.
  
  He edited several books including Letters of Thomas Hood from the Dilke Papers in the British Museum and Selected Poetry of Lord Byron, all the while continuing his own research on Byron. Marc-hand edited about three thousand of Byron’s letters including one hundred he had located himself. His twelve-volume study, Byron's Letters and Journals, was published from 1973 to 1982 and two of the volumes were rewarded with publishing prizes.
  
  He received many honors including a book of the year award from the New Jersey Association of Teachers of English for Byron: A Biography and from the American Council of Learned Societies.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Byron: A Biography

    (Over Fifty years old and still the most comprehensive bio...)

    1957
  • Byron, portrait d'un homme libre 1999
  • The Athenaeum;: A mirror of Victorian Culture 1941

Membership

Marchand was a fellow of Royal Society Literature. He also was a member of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association, Modern Language Association, Keats-Shelley Association American, Byron Society and Phi Beta Kappa.

Personality

Always the quiet American, Marchand modestly said that his multi-volume biography and its popular offspring would endure for 20 years at most. He never sought publicity and, if he appeared shy, he was not stand-offish. He always knew that there would be a need for more accounts of the poet.

Connections

On July 8, 1950, Marchand married Marion Knill Hendrix.

Father:

Alexis Marchand

Mother:

Clara Adele (Buckingham) Marchand

Spouse:

Marion Knill Hendrix