Background
Geismar, Maxwell David was born on August 1, 1909 in New York City. Son of Leon and Mary (Feinberg) Geismar.
Geismar, Maxwell David was born on August 1, 1909 in New York City. Son of Leon and Mary (Feinberg) Geismar.
Bachelor of Arts, Columbia, 1931, Master of Arts (Moncrief Proudfit fellow letters), 1932. Teaching fellow, Harvard, 1932-1933.
Member department literature Sarah Lawrence College, 1933-1947. Free-lance writer, historian, critic, lecturer, since 1945. Contributing editor The Nation, 1945-1950.
Guggenheim fellow 1943-1944.
Fellow Boston University Libraries, 1966-1979. Recipient award literature work National Academy Arts and Letters, 1952.
Author: Writers in Crisis, 1942. The Last of the Provincials, 1947.
Rebels and Ancestors, 1952.
American Moderns, 1958. Henry James and the Jacobites, 1963. Mark Twain: an American Prophet, 1970.
Ring Lardner and the Portrait of Folly, 1972.
Editor: Thomas Wolfe Portable, 1944. Walt Whitman Reader, 1955.
Short Stories of Sherwood Anderson, 1962. Ring Lardner Reader, 1963.
Mark Twain and the Three R’s, 1973.
The Higher Animals: A Mark Twain Bestiary, 1976. Senior editor Ramparts magazine. Founding editor Scanlan’s Monthly.
Advisory editor Chicago Review, 1973-1979.
Contributor to New York Times Book Review, Herald Tribune Books, American Scholar, Sat. Review, Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly, Encyclopedia British, Compton’s Encyclopedia Address: Harrison, New New York
Member department literature Sarah Lawrence College, 1933-1947.
Married Anne Rosenberg, September 11, 1931. Children: Katherine (Mistress Lovis Seiden), Peter, Elizabeth.