William Andrew Ringler Jr. was born on May 17, 1912, in Montclair, California. His parents were William Ringler and Anna Ringler. He later maintained strong professional connections with major American centers of English literary scholarship and spent the final years of his career in Southern California, where he worked at the Huntington Library and died in Pasadena on January 1, 1987.
Ringler studied at Princeton University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1934, a Master of Arts in 1935, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1937. His doctoral research formed part of his early work in English Renaissance literature and preceded a career devoted to the editing, bibliography, and interpretation of Tudor poetry.
Ringler began his academic career at Princeton University, where he worked as an instructor in English and subsequently held an assistant professorship. He later joined Washington University in St. Louis, where he was a professor from 1950 to 1962. In 1962 he became a professor of English at the University of Chicago, remaining there until 1979 and later holding emeritus status. His scholarship centered on English Renaissance and Tudor literature, particularly the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney, early English verse, and the textual history of sixteenth-century works. In 1979 he joined the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, as a senior research associate in English literature. He also served as a faculty associate in literature at the California Institute of Technology during the early 1980s. At the time of his death, he was working on studies of English verse in print from 1475 to 1558 and English manuscript verse from the same period.
Established the modern scholarly text of Sir Philip Sidney's poetry through the landmark edition The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, published in 1962.
Produced major bibliographical resources for the study of Tudor and early English verse, including indexes of printed and manuscript poetry from the sixteenth century.
Helped advance the scholarly study of William Baldwin's Beware the Cat through an edition prepared with Michael Flachmann and published by the Huntington Library.
Bibliography and Index of English Verse in Manuscript, 1501–1558
(A bibliographical index of English verse preserved in man...)
1992Bibliography and Index of English Verse Printed 1476–1558
(A comprehensive bibliographical and first-line index of E...)
1988Elizabethan Poetry: A Bibliography and First-Line Index of English Verse, 1559–1603
(A three-volume reference work by Steven W. May and Willia...)
2004Ringler was a member of the Zamorano Club and Phi Beta Kappa. His scholarly participation also extended through the research community associated with the Huntington Library, where he was an English-literature research staff member and a contributor to the institution's work in Renaissance studies.
Quotes from others about the person
Ringler's 1962 edition of The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney was described in his obituary as one of the most definitive works produced on the sixteenth-century Renaissance poet and courtier.
Ringler was married to Evelyn Ringler. He and Evelyn had two daughters and one son, and they had one grandchild. His scholarly papers, correspondence, and research materials were preserved at the Huntington Library, where they became an important resource for the study of Sir Philip Sidney and English Renaissance poetry.
