Richmond C. Beatty

Richmond C. Beatty (January 6, 1905 – October 9, 1961) was an American academic, biographer and critic. He was the author of several books.

Richmond Croom Beatty
Born	January 6, 1905 Shawnee, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	October 9, 1961 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Resting place	Calvary Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Alma mater	Birmingham-Southern College Vanderbilt University
Occupation(s)	Academic, biographer
Spouse	Floy Ward
Parent(s)	William Henry Beatty Caroline Barbour

Early life

Richmond C. Beatty was born on January 6, 1905, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, where his father, William Henry Beatty, was a "cotton buyer." His mother was Caroline Barbour. He had a brother and two sisters.

Beatty graduated from Birmingham-Southern College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1926. He subsequently attended Vanderbilt University, where he earned a master's degree in 1928 and a PhD in 1930.

Career

Beatty began his career as an English professor at Tennessee State Teachers College (later known as the University of Memphis) from 1930 to 1935. He was an assistant professor of English at the University of Alabama from 1935 to 1937. He was an associate professor of English and American Literature at Vanderbilt University from 1937 to 1946, when he became a full professor. He retired from academia in 1956, and he joined the staff of The Tennessean as the literary editor.

Beatty was the author of several books, including biographies. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1940. He was a member of the Modern Language Association.

Personal life and death

Beatty married Floy Ward in 1927. They resided at 3627 Hoods Hill Road in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville. He survived throat cancer in 1956.

Beatty died on October 9, 1961, at his Nashville residence, and he was buried in the Calvary Cemetery in Nashville.

Selected works

• Beatty, Richmond C. (1932). William Byrd of Westover.
• Parks, Edd Winfield (1935). English Dramas. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. OCLC 971338057.
• Beatty, Richmond C. (1936). Bayard Taylor, Laureate of the Gilded Age. Norman, University of Oklahoma press.
• Beatty, Richmond C. (1938). Lord Macaulay, Victorian Liberal. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. OCLC 252002434.
• Beatty, Richmond C. (1942). James Russell Lowell. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. OCLC 776378468.
• Beatty, Richmond C.; Watkins, Floyd C.; Young, Thomas Daniel, eds. (1952). The Literature of the South. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company.
• Beatty, Richmond C.; Bradley, Sculley; Long, E. Hudson, eds. (1961). The American Tradition in Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

Further reading

• Walker, William E.; Welker, Robert L., eds. (1964). Reality and Myth: Essays in American Literature in Memory of Richard Croom Beatty. Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press. OCLC 67142430.