Inspirational Quotes by Edgar V. Roberts (American Scholar)

Edgar V. Roberts (1928–2020) was an American literature scholar and academic. He achieved acclaim for his influential contributions to literature and writing.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Roberts served in the U.S. Army 1946–47, stationed in the Philippines, Arkansas, and Colorado. He earned his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1960, with a focus on the plays of Henry Fielding for his PhD dissertation. Roberts was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and a study fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.

Roberts held teaching positions at various institutions, including the University of Minnesota, University of Maryland Overseas Division, Wayne State University, Hunter College, and Lehman College of The City University of New York. In the 1980s, he served as Chair of the Lehman English Department, later as Professor Emeritus.

Roberts made significant editorial contributions, overseeing the publication of two eighteenth-century plays: John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1968) and Henry Fielding’s The Grub-Street Opera (1969.) He authored several books on literature and writing, with a cumulative sale of over a million copies. Notable among them is Writing Themes about Literature (1964,) which underwent more than a dozen editions. His Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing (1986) went through multiple editions as well.

READ: Works by Edgar V. Roberts