Joel Myerson

Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor
Office: 414 Humanities Office Building
(803) 777-2165
myersonj@mailbox.sc.edu

Education

Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1971

Specialization Areas

• Ralph Waldo Emerson,
• Transcendentalism,
• Textual editing, and
• Bibliographical and textual studies

Current Research Interest

• Supplement to Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Descriptive Bibliography (Pittsburgh);
• The Correspondence of Ralph Waldo Emerson and His Brothers (co-ed.: Oxford);
• Emerson Bicentennial Essays (co-ed.; Massachusetts Historical Society/Northeastern);
• The Selected Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson (co-ed.; Georgia);
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (co-ed.; Gale), in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Documentary Series.
• Textual Editor for vols. 8-10 of the Harvard University Press edition of The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Publications

Joel Myerson received his B.A. from Tulane University in 1967, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1968 and 1971.  He joined the faculty of the University of South Carolina in 1971, served as department chair in 1987‑1990, and was Carolina Distinguished Professor of American Literature from 1990 until he retired in 2003.

An authority on Transcendentalism and textual and bibliographical studies, Professor Myerson has written, edited, co‑authored, or co‑edited some fifty books, including a history of the Dial magazine (1980); annotated secondary bibliographies of Brook Farm (1978), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1985, 1994), and Margaret Fuller (1977, 1998); descriptive primary bibliographies of Emily Dickinson (1984), Emerson (1982, 2005), Fuller (1978), Theodore Parker (1981), and Walt Whitman (1993); editions of writings by Louisa May Alcott (1988, 1990, 1991; also Selected Letters [1987], Journals [1989], and The Inheritance [1997]), Christopher Pearse Cranch (1993), Emerson (Antislavery Writings [1995], Selected Letters [1997], Later Lectures [2001], and Selected Lectures [2005]), Fuller (1978, 1980, 2000), Nathaniel Hawthorne (Selected Letters [2002]), Whitman (1993), and Transcendentalism: A Reader (2000); such bibliographical works as The Transcendentalists: A Review of Research and Criticism (1984); collections of essays on Brook Farm (1987), Emerson (1982, 1983, 1992, 2000, 2003, 2006), Fuller (1980), Henry David Thoreau (1988, 1995), Transcendentalism (1982), Whitman (1991, 2000), and the profession of authorship (1996); The Emerson Brothers: A Fraternal Biography in Letters (2005); and edited the annual Studies in the American Renaissance (1977-1996).  He is currently Textual Editor for vols. 8-10 of the Harvard edition of The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  The publishers of these books include Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, Dutton Books, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Gale Research Company, Garland Publishers, Greenwood Press, G. K. Hall, Harvard University Press, Little, Brown, Massachusetts Historical Society, Modern Language Association, Oak Knoll Press, Ohio State University Press, Oxford University Press, Penguin Books, Southern Illinois University Press, Twayne Publishers, University of Georgia Press, University of Iowa Press, University of Pittsburgh Press, University of South Carolina Press, University Press of Virginia, and Yale University Press. 

Among the journals in which Professor Myerson has published articles are American Literature, American Transcendental Quarterly, Association for Documentary Editing Newsletter, Carlyle Annual, CEAA Newsletter, CLA Journal, Concord Saunterer [Thoreau Society], Documentary Editing, Emerson Society Papers, Emily Dickinson Journal, English Language Notes, ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, Harvard Library Bulletin, Huntington Library Quarterly, Illinois Quarterly, Literary Research Newsletter, Manuscripts, Markers: Annual Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies, Margaret Fuller Society Newsletter, Nathaniel Hawthorne Journal, New England Quarterly, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Professional Rare Bookseller, Proof: The Yearbook of American Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Resources for American Literary Study, Review, South Atlantic Bulletin, South Central Review, Southwest Review, Studies in Bibliography, Text [Society for Textual Scholarship], Thoreau Journal Quarterly, Thoreau Society Bulletin, and Walt Whitman Quarterly Review.

The Joel Myerson Collection of Nineteenth-Century American Literature at the University of South Carolina, donated in 2001, commemorates over thirty years of book collecting by Professor Myerson.  His collection comprises approximately 12,000 volumes, including major collections of works by Dickinson, Emerson, Fuller, Parker, and Whitman.  He has curated exhibits on Emerson, Fuller, Transcendentalism, and Whitman at South Carolina; on Emerson at the Houghton Library of Harvard University; and on Whitman at the University of Otago (New Zealand).

Professor Myerson has delivered papers or chaired sessions at meetings of the American Literature Association, Association for Documentary Editing, Australasian Children=s Literature Association for Research, Australia and New Zealand American Studies Association, Bibliographical Society of America, Canadian Association of American Studies, Children=s Literature Association, Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, International Humor Association, Jack London Society, Modern Language Association, Northeast Modern Language Association, Philological Association of the Carolinas, International Poe Conference, Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Society for Textual Scholarship, Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, South Atlantic Modern Language Association, South Central Modern Language Association, and Thoreau Society; he has also lectured at Baldwin-Wallace College, Boston University, Cambridge University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Concord Free Public Library, Concord Museum, Concord School of Philosophy, Dunedin (New Zealand) Public Library, Florida State University, Fruitlands Museums, Harvard University, Hiroshima University, House of the Seven Gables, Kentucky Wesleyan College, Kyushu University, Massachusetts Historical Society, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Northeastern University, Oregon State University, Peking University (Beijing), Ritsumeikan University (Japan), St. John=s College (Santa Fe), Salem State College, Soka University (Japan), State University of New York at Geneseo, Texas A&M University, University of Florida, University of Ghent, University of Iowa, University of Manchester (England), University of Nebraska, University of North Carolina, University of Otago (New Zealand), University of Rome ALa Sapienza,@ University of Tennessee, University of Tokyo, University of Toledo, University of Vermont, Villanova University, Washington State University, and in Australia (Launceston [Tasmania], Melbourne, Sydney), Canada (Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg), Edinburgh, Luxembourg, Mexico (Cabo San Lucas, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta), Morocco, and Paris.  He was awarded a short-term Fulbright lectureship in Japan in 2002 (for talks on Emerson) and a Fulbright Senior Specialist fellowship in New Zealand in 2005 (for talks on Whitman).

Among Professor Myerson=s honors are research grants or fellowships from the American Philosophical Society (three), National Endowment for the Humanities (summer fellowship and five multi‑year grants from the research programs division), Guggenheim Foundation, and South Carolina Committee for the Humanities.  Four of his books have been designated by Choice as an AOutstanding Academic Book@ of the year.  He has received both the Distinguished Service Award and the Lyman H. Butterfield award for contributions to the field of documentary editing from the Association for Documentary Editing.  The Philological Association of the Carolinas has designated him its AHonoree in English@ and held a special session in his honor; and he has been elected to membership in the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society.  The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, which he co‑edited, won the Children=s Literature Association book award.  Emersonian Circles: Essays in Honor of Joel Myerson, ed. Wesley T. Mott and Robert E. Burkholder, was published by the University of Rochester Press in 1997; also in that year he received the English department=s ATeacher of the Year@ award.   In 2000 he was given the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, and in 2004 the Thoreau Society awarded him its highest honor, the Thoreau Society Medal.  

Professor Myerson has been active in professional organizations, serving as president of the Louisa May Alcott Society, Association for Documentary Editing, Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, Margaret Fuller Society, Philological Association of the Carolinas, and Thoreau Society.  He has also been on the editorial advisory boards of the Pittsburgh Series in Bibliography, American Literature, American National Biography, American Periodicals, Book History, Carlyle Annual, Concord Saunterer [Thoreau Society], ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, Journal of Florida Literature, Journal of Unitarian Universalist History, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, Nineteenth‑Century Studies, Resources for American Literary Study, and Text.  With Ronald Bosco, he coordinated the bicentennial celebration of Emerson=s birth organized by the Emerson Society in Boston and Concord in 2003.