In Memoriam

Abstract

I first met Joel Myerson in an elevator at an American Literature Association Conference in Boston: he was wearing his famous Hawaiian shirt. Thereafter, I recognized his presence at various Alcott venues at ALA conferences: he always had something significant to remark upon after the talks were given. When I became more involved with the Alcott Society, I realized how sociable, warm, witty, and helpful he was at Alcott sessions and dinners. I remember an organized outing from an ALA meeting in Boston to the Alcott Orchard House in Concord, and he was clearly the life of the party.In terms of my scholarship on Louisa May Alcott, I could not have done as much without his co-edited collections (with Daniel Shealy) on Alcott’s letters and journals. This also holds true for his significant work on Margaret Fuller: I found his Margaret Fuller, Critic: Writings from the New York–Tribune, 1844–1846 (co-edited with Judith Mattson Bean) indispensable to several articles I wrote on Fuller. He knew and wrote so much about the Concord circle I admire, and he will forever be missed.Monika Elbert, Montclair State University One sheer delight of academic conferences was to come upon Joel Myerson, of course for conversation and commentary but to see what ghastly Hawaiian shirt he would be wearing. I think it actually glowed, but I may be wrong.Joel has done so much for so many. I recently came across Studies in the American Renaissance for 1994, which I believe he began to edit in 1983, and was staggered by the number of scholars within its pages. It is probably his monumental contribution to American Studies in all its many shapes and sizes and will remain a major repository of critical thinking. I gasped when I found an article I’d written, and he’d accepted, “The Romance of Mesmerism: Hawthorne’s Medium of Romance,” which helped launch me deeper into Hawthorne studies and beyond.Joel was a convivial and sharp-eyed mentor, good-humored and helpful. So many of us owe him so much. Here’s to you, Mr. Myerson. We couldn’t have done it without your thoughtfulness, patience, perspective and assistance. Thank you. You done real good!Sam Coale, Wheaton College Dr. Joel Myerson was an acclaimed editor and critic of nineteenth-century American literature. In Hawthorne Studies, Myerson edited an important work of Hawthorne’s collected writings, The Selected Letters of National Hawthorne (Ohio State UP, 2002). The titular collection he donated to the University of South Carolina Library includes early editions of Hawthorne’s works, as well as signed letters. Despite Myerson’s scholarly achievements, though, I most remember him because he helped solidify my career trajectory in American literature studies. As an MA student at the University of South Carolina, I signed up for his American Transcendentalism seminar one semester after doing poorly in a Renaissance Literature course. I wasn’t sure if graduate school was right for me. Myerson’s class only had doctoral students enrolled. This experience was the first time I had to collaborate and compete with them. From the moment the course started, I was transfixed. Everything he taught about Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott, and other nineteenth-centuryists spoke immediately to me—and I held my own in that course. After class, we would hold conversations on Thoreau’s theory of plant crystals or discuss how far south both Emerson and Thoreau had traveled. His compliments to me on my work were not liberally dispersed, but I hung on to every such word, including when he noted my “eloquence.” He had other acolytes in that class, several of whom, including myself, have gone on to become full-time English faculty. His guidance led to that success.Myerson eventually became my MA thesis advisor and provided general advice on that project, one that argues for Emerson’s unacknowledged influence on Proust, the latter whom Myerson seemed to dislike in the context I placed him. Later, he composed a letter of recommendation that ensured my admission to doctoral programs. I want to emphasize how powerful he was as a pedagogue and educator, at least immediately to us students, more so than his role as a scholarly editor. I had never known him to refuse a graduate student asking for mentoring or help. He left an indelible mark at the University of South Carolina; I can’t disassociate Myerson from my thoughts of that institution.Michael S. Martin, Nicholls State University