REILLY, John M(arsden) 1933-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born February 18, 1933, in Pittsburgh, PA; died of a brain hemorrhage, February 9, 2004, in Cooperstown, NY. Educator and author. Reilly was an English professor at Howard University and a recognized authority on African-American literature and mystery fiction. Completing his undergraduate work at West Virginia University in 1954, he went on to earn a master's and doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis in 1963 and 1967 respectively. His teaching career began at Washington, where he was an English instructor for a year, followed by two years teaching at the University of Puerto Rico. In 1963, he joined the faculty at the State University of New York at Albany, where he became a full professor in 1983. He left Albany for Howard University in 1994, at first as a visiting professor and then as a full professor; he had been directing the English graduate program there since 1998. Especially interested in the work of Richard Wright, Reilly was the editor of Richard Wright: The Critical Reception (1978), and he wrote afterwords for editions of Wright's novels Black Boy and Native Son. More recently, Reilly was recognized for his expertise in crime and mystery fiction, publishing Tony Hillerman: A Critical Companion in 1996 and winning the George Dove Award for Distinguished Work in Crime Literature from the Popular Culture Association in 1989 and an Edgar Allan Poe award for his Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers (1980; 2nd edition, 1985). He also coedited Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999) and wrote Larry McMurtry: A Critical Companion (2000). The president of the United University Professors (UUP) union from 1987 to 1993, Reilly received the Nina Mitchell Award from the UUP in 1994, and the NAACP honored him in 2004 for his lifetime contributions to civil rights.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Daily Star, February 12, 2004.

Washington Post, February 15, 2004, p. C10.