News from
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Communications and Publications, Stanhope Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544
Tel 609/258-3601; Fax 609/258-1301
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: December 11, 1995
Contact: Justin Harmon (609) 258-3600
Professor Emeritus E.D.H. Johnson Dies;
Was an Authority on Victorian Life
Princeton, N.J.--Professor Emeritus Edward Dudley Hume Johnson, a leading authority on life and manners in Victorian England, died in here on Saturday, December 9 of cancer. He was 84.
Professor Johnson, who was the Holmes Professor Emeritus of Belles-Lettres in the Department of English, retired in 1978 after teaching at Princeton for a total of 34 years. Johnson first joined the faculty as an instructor in 1939 and left in 1941 to serve in the United States Naval Reserve during World War II. He rose in rank from ensign to lieutenant commander before returning to Princeton in 1946, this time as an assistant professor.
Upon his return, Professor Johnson developed popular undergraduate and graduate courses in Victorian literature and intellectual history. He was one of the earliest recipients of Princeton University's Bicentennial Preceptorships, and he was promoted to associate professor in 1952 and to full professor in 1961. Professor Johnson served as chairman of the English Department from 1968 to 1974; in the final year of his chairmanship he was named Holmes Professor of Belles-Lettres.
Professor Johnson's books in his field include The Alien Vision of Victorian Poetry (1952) and Charles Dickens: An Introduction to the Reading of His Novels (1965). Later in his career, Professor Johnson - who owned a notable collection of English watercolors - turned to the study of British painting. He spent two years on leave from Princeton researching this subject, first as a senior fellow in the Council of Humanities (1973-74) and later as a Guggenheim Fellow (1978-79.) In 1979, he delivered the annual Franklin Jasper Walls lecture at The Pierpont Morgan Library, which became the basis for his most important book, Paintings of the British Social Scene from Hogarth to Sickert.
A love of the outdoors led to other publications, including the acclaimed 1966 anthology of the writings of British naturalists, entitled The Poetry of the Earth. Professor Johnson's related interests were commemorated in Nature and the Victorian Imagination, a volume of 25 essays by his former students and colleagues, which was presented to Professor Johnson at his retirement.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, on November 29, 1911, Johnson received a bachelor's degree from Princeton in 1934, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Rhodes Scholar and received a second undergraduate degree from Oriel College in Oxford, England, in 1936. Johnson received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1939 and was a Mitchell Fellow.
Professor Johnson is survived by his wife, the former Mary Laura Vance, whom he married in 1947; two sons, Alexander Buchanan Johnson '72, a banker living in New York City, Geoffrey McClure Johnson '73, a lawyer living in Bronxville, N.Y.; a daughter, Victoria Taylor Pickering, of Storrs, Conn.; a sister, Mrs. E.S. Owren of Jamesburg, N.J.; and four grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held in Princeton after the New Year.