McElrath, Joseph R., Jr. 1945–

(Joseph Richard, McElrath, Jr.)

PERSONAL:

Born June 10, 1945, in Jesup, GA; son of Joseph R. (a business executive) and Marguerite McElrath; married Sharon Morrison, August 27, 1966; children: Gregory Mark, Christopher Matthew. Education: LeMoyne College, B.A., 1967; Duquesne University, M.A., 1969; University of South Carolina, Ph.D., 1973.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Tallahassee, FL. Office—Florida State University, 110 Longmire, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1280. E-mail—jmcelrath@fsu.edu.

CAREER:

Educator, writer, and editor. State University of New York (SUNY), Brockport, NY, assistant professor, 1973-74; Florida State University, Tallahassee, assistant professor of English, 1974-77, associate professor, 1977-81, professor, 1981-2000, William Hudson Rogers Professor of English, and associate dean for Academic Affairs, College of Arts & Sciences, 2000—. Also founder of the "Textual & Bibliographical Studies" section of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association.

MEMBER:

Modern Language Association of America, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, New York Historical Society, Society for Textual Study (advisory board of directors, 1982-95), Association for Documentary Editing, Frank Norris Society (board of directors, 1985, managing editor, 1985).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Florida State University System Teaching Award, 1995; John Frederick Lewis Award, American Philosophical Society, 1996; Florida State University System Professional Excellence Award, 1997; Lyman H. Butterfield Award, Association for Documentary Editing, 1998; Florida State University Excellence in Teaching Award, 1999; Sylvia Lyons Render Award, Charles Waddell Chesnutt Association, 1999, 2006. Recipient of fellowships from Bibliographical Society of America, 1989; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (Library Company of Philadelphia), 1994. Recipient of grants from National Science Foundation (Science & Technology Studies Program), 1998, 1999; National Endowment for the Humanities (Collaborative Research Program), 2000, and for University Teachers, 2003; Franklin Research Grant, American Philosophical Society, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Frank Norris: A Reference Guide, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1975.

The Complete Works of Anne Bradstreet, Twayne (New York, NY), 1976.

Frank Norris and the Wave (bibliography), Garland (New York, NY), 1988.

Frank Norris: A Descriptive Bibliography, University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, PA), 1992.

Frank Norris Revisited, Twayne (New York, NY), 1992.

The Pit: A Story of Chicago, Penguin (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor, with Douglas K. Burgess) The Apprenticeship Writings of Frank Norris, 1896-1898, American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia, PA), 1996.

(Editor, with Jesse S. Crisler and Susan Shillinglaw) John Steinbeck: The Contemporary Reviews, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with Robert C. Leitz III) To Be an Author: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1997.

(Editor, with Robert C. Leitz III and Jesse S. Crisler) Charles W. Chesnutt: Essays and Speeches, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1999.

(Editor) Critical Essays on Charles W. Chesnutt, G.K. Hall (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor, with Jesse S. Crisler and Robert C. Leitz III) An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2002.

(With Jesse S. Crisler) Frank Norris: A Life, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2006.

Editor of journal Frank Norris Studies, 1986-2004, and of Editorial Quarterly; member of editorial advisory board for "American Literary Realism and Naturalism" series of monographs, University of Alabama Press. Contributor to literature journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joseph R. McElrath, Jr., is an English professor who has written and edited several books about the influential African American writer Charles W. Chesnutt and the American novelist Frank Norris. Chesnutt is considered to be perhaps the most prominent African American fiction writer before the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. Between 1899 and 1905, Chesnutt wrote three novels and two short-story collections. He also wrote numerous essays for Ameri- can periodicals up until 1931, the year before he died. McElrath is editor with Robert C. Leitz III of To Be an Author: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905, which includes an introduction that discusses Chesnutt's position in African American literature and a brief biography of Chesnutt. "Selected with a primary focus on Chesnutt's writings and the publication (or not) of them, these letters provide a kind of literary biography of a very interesting person and writer," noted Julian Mason in the Mississippi Quarterly. ANQ contributor Mary V. Dougherty wrote that "the volume of letters [is] meticulously edited and annotated."

As editor of Critical Essays on Charles W. Chesnutt, McElrath "has set out to reclaim Chesnutt as an important figure in the American literary canon, not just the African American canon," noted Robert E. Fleming in African American Review. The book includes various essays and other writings that examine Chesnutt's work in detail. These essays date from the early 1900s and include three essays newly written for this volume, which also contains an "Interviews and Personal Statements" section. Fleming noted: "McElrath's collection is a fine addition to the growing body of Chesnutt criticism."

McElrath is also coeditor with Jesse S. Crisler and Robert C. Leitz III of An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932. "Whereas the first collection of letters concentrated on Chesnutt's most fruitful period as a writer, this book … deals with his least productive period, when he came to see his writing as an ‘avocation’ rather than a ‘vocation’ and produced a disappointing series of unpublished novels and short story collections," noted Robert Butler in African American Review. Butler went on to call An Exemplary Citizen "an invaluable tool … for anyone seeking a deeper grasp of American and African American literature."

McElrath collaborated with Jesse S. Crisler to write Frank Norris: A Life. Norris was a novelist who wrote in the naturalist genre during the literary Progressive Era of the 1890s and early 1900s, producing novels such as McTeague, which is still considered among the classics of American literature, The Octopus: A California Story, and The Pit. Norris died in 1902 from peritonitis due to a ruptured appendix. In their biography, McElrath and Crisler seek to rectify many errors and misconceptions about Norris, including those that appear in the only other biography of Norris, which was written in 1932. "In setting the record straight, the meticulous McElrath and Crisler have written the definitive biography of Norris," wrote Victor Davis Hanson in the New York Times Book Review. "In it, they emphasize how appreciation of Norris's literary genius is inseparable from an untimely death that forever raised the unfulfilled promise of even greater work to come."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African American Review, spring, 2001, Robert E. Fleming, review of Critical Essays on Charles W. Chesnutt, p. 154; fall, 2004, Robert Butler, review of An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932, p. 525.

American Literature, March, 1989, review of Frank Norris and the Wave, p. 163; March, 1993, review of Frank Norris: A Descriptive Bibliography, p. 209; September, 1997, review of John Steinbeck: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 656; June, 2006, review of Frank Norris: A Life, p. 422.

ANQ, spring, 2001, Mary V. Dougherty, review of To Be an Author: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1889-1905.

Biography, winter, 2006, Victor Davis Hanson, review of Frank Norris: A Life, p. 24.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, July 1, 1997, C. Packard, review of To Be an Author, p. 1800; July 1, 2000, R.A. Bess, review of Critical Essays on Charles W. Chesnutt, p. 1978; January, 2003, C. Johanningsmeier, review of An Exemplary Citizen, p. 822; May, 2006, C. Johanningsmeier, review of Frank Norris: A Life, p. 1601.

Journal of American Studies, April, 2001, Tim Armstrong, review of Charles W. Chesnutt: Essays and Speeches, p. 172.

Journal of the West, winter, 2007, Robert W. Haynes, review of Frank Norris: A Life, p. 106.

London Review of Books, July 20, 2006, Amanda Claybaugh, "He Could Not Cable" review of Frank Norris: A Life, p. 31.

Mississippi Quarterly, fall, 1998, Julian Mason, review of To Be an Author.

New York Times Book Review, January 1, 2006, Victor Davis Hanson, review of Frank Norris: A Life.

Nineteenth-Century Literature, March, 1993, review of Frank Norris Revisited, p. 533; March, 1993, review of Frank Norris: A Descriptive Bibliography, p. 533.

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, June, 1989, James R. Kelly, review of Frank Norris and the Wave, p. 253.

Reference & Research Book News, October, 1988, review of Frank Norris and the Wave, p. 26.

Roundup Magazine, April, 2007, C.K. Crigger, review of Frank Norris: A Life, p. 29.

Times Literary Supplement, June 30, 2006, Anthony Cummins, "Medieval and Modern," review of Frank Norris: A Life, p. 24.

ONLINE

Florida State University English Department Web site,http://www.english.fsu.edu/ (November 15, 2007), faculty profile of author.

Stanford University Press Web site,http://www.sup.org/ (November 15, 2007), description of Charles W. Chesnutt: Essays and Speeches.