Richard Burton

For all the richness and variety of his long career—as poet, essayist, and teacher—it was for his personality that his many friends in the Century will remember Richard Burton. There was a singular grace of manner in his companionship and a rare playfulness of humor in his talk. William Gillette once remarked that “Dick” Burton was one of the ablest actors he knew, capable of performing any part that he, Gillette, had played. This gift of mimicry stood him in good stead in his famous lectures, on Dickens, for example, and it played a precious part in his conversation.

His ancestry stemmed from the Hartford tradition. There he went to college, and one of his first jobs was as literary editor of the Hartford Courant. His first book of poems appeared in this period, the start of a small shelf full of poetry, essays, fiction and criticism. His teaching career began in 1898 when he became head of the English department of the University of Minnesota, a post which he held—save for one interruption during which he lectured at the University of Chicago—until 1925. His editorial posts were many and varied, including Warner’s Library of the World’s Best Literature. The Drama League of America was another of his major interests and he served as its president. In recent years he had also turned his hand to moving pictures, acting as editor of literary matters on the screen for Warner Brothers Pictures.

Reaching an age when he might well have retired, he remained loyal to his favorite task of lecturing, at Columbia University, at Sarah Lawrence College, and lastly, as professor of literature at Rollins College, at Winter Park, Florida. His friends tell of the grandeur with which he carried on to the end, inspiring his classes with his unfailing humor and imagination, though knowing that a fatal illness had seized him. He died in the class-room, as he doubtless would have wished.

Geoffrey Parsons
1940 Century Memorials