Erdman, David V. | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

David Vorse Erdman was born November 4, 1911 in Omaha, Nebraska to Carl and Myrtle (Vorse) Erdman and died October 14, 2001. After graduating from Carleton College with a BA (1933) and from Princeton University with a PhD (1936), Erdman taught English at multiple universities including the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Minnesota, Duke University, and Temple University. In 1937, he married Mary Virginia Bohan in Pulaski County, Arkansas.

An editor, writer, and critic, Erdman was a pre-eminent scholar of William Blake as well as an accomplished Romanticist. Erdman wrote over sixty articles for professional journals and edited a plethora of monographs as well, and he is particularly recognized for his 1954 book, Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of the History of His Own Times, which won the Emily S. Hamblen Memorial Award for Best Work on William Blake in 1955. Erdman was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1947 and 1954. However, despite his scholarly accomplishments, Erdman would experience difficulty in the academic world due to his communist political beliefs.

At the time of his death in 2001, Erdman was Professor Emeritus of English at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, where he also served as editor of publications for The New York Public Library since 1956.

"David V. Erdman." Contemporary Authors Online. Literature Resource Center. Gale Cengage Learning.

"Library Editor Marlboro Speaker." The Brattleboro Reformer (Brattleboro, Vermont), 1966 Febuary 3