David S. Reynolds

David S. Reynolds is one of the most acclaimed and respected authors of biography, history and literary criticism in American letters. With more than twenty-five books to his credit, he is perhaps best known for his studies of the antebellum United States. His works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman’s America (1995), and a masterful reconsideration of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln in American Memory (1994). Beyond his scholarly works, Reynolds has written several books for general readers, including Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America (2010) and John Brown, Abolitionist (2005).

Reynolds was born in 1948 in New York City. He received an A.B. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. He taught at City College and the Graduate Center, CUNY from 1968-2005, and he currently is a Professor of English and American Studies at Baruch College, CUNY. In addition to teaching, Reynolds has delivered notable lectures at Yale, Princeton, and Harvard Universities as well as at many academic and literary conferences.

Reynolds is perhaps best known for his scholarship in American literature of the nineteenth century. His magnum opus, Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography (1995), was praised by critics for its clarity and its insights into the life and works of the poet. In a review for the New York Times, poet and critic Alicia Ostriker called the work “a truly magisterial account of Whitman’s life…it restores human complexity to a long misunderstood figure.” The book won the Pulitzer Prize and the Institute of New Jersey Book Critics “Book of the Year” award, among other honors.

In 1994, Reynolds published Lincoln in American Memory, a reconsideration of the memory of Abraham Lincoln and the various cultural camps which vie for influence in the interpretation of the sixteenth president. Reynolds focused on how the interpretations of Lincoln underwent significant changes over the years and how the memorialization of his life changed the way the nation remembers him. Reynolds argues that the memories of Lincoln helped Americans to move beyond their differences to more progressive unity.

Beyond history and biography, Reynolds has studied other aspects of nineteenth-century American culture. In Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America (2010), he examines the phenomenon of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and it’s role in the development of a national conscience. Reynolds also wrote the novels, Beneath the American Renaissance (1984) and Faith in Fiction: The Emergence of Religious Literature in America (1987). In the latter, Reynolds explored the religious impulse in American literature from Jonathan Edwards through the popular works of the “American Renaissance” of the mid-nineteenth century.

Reynolds has also contributed work to magazines, newspapers, radio and television. He has been featured on the TODAY show, News Hour with Jim Lehrer and National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air.” As of 2021, Reynolds has released more than twenty-five books and continues to publish new works of biography and literature. He is a respected and studied author of 19th century American cultural history who maintains a passionate interest in his beloved subject matter.