Draft:Edward M. Burns

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Edward M. Burns (March 2, 1944 – November 3, 2023) was an American scholar, editor and teacher.

Edward M. Burns
Born	1944 Brooklyn, NY
Died	2023 Mount Sinai, NY
Occupation	scholar editor teacher
Language	English
Nationality	American
Notable works	The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten (1986)

Life and career

Edward Michael Burns was born in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating with a BA from Brooklyn College in 1965, he taught high school for more than twenty years, in Brooklyn and then in Manhattan. From 1964 to 2022, he lived in the East Village, Manhattan. He was a supporter of The Living Theatre and the Judson Poets' Theatre (its production of In Circles in 1968) and was close with actors such as Ondine and artists such as Paul Thek.

In 1983 he received his PhD from CUNY Graduate Center, and in 1989 joined the English department at William Paterson University, where, in 2015, he retired as Professor Emeritus.

As a scholar, his primary contribution was as an editor of correspondence. He focused on noted twentieth-century literary figures: Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Carl Van Vechten, Thornton Wilder, Hugh Kenner, and Guy Davenport. He would edit two collections of Stein's letters, one with his mentor Ulla Dydo, and was frequently a contributor to museum exhibitions related to Stein. As Janet Malcolm said of Burns, "[h]is appetite for research into Stein's life is almost unappeasable. He goes where no one else had thought of going, and comes back with trophies of great worth."

From 1997 to 2013, he was a co-editor of the academic journal TEXT (which became Textual Cultures in 2006).

In 2018, he received, from the Modern Language Association, the Morton N. Cohen Award for a Distinguished Edition of Letters for his book Questioning Minds.

He died in Mount Sinai, New York, from a stroke, at age 79.

Published works

• Burns, Edward, ed. Gertrude Stein on Picasso. Liveright, 1970.
• Burns, Edward, ed. Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas. Liveright, 1973.
• Burns, Edward, ed. The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten. 2 vols., Columbia University Press, 1986.
• Burns, Edward, and Ulla E. Dydo, eds., with William Rice. The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder. Yale UP, 1996.
• Burns, Edward, ed., with Joshua A. Gaylord. A Tour of the Darkling Plain: The Finnegans Wake Letters of Thornton Wilder and Adaline Glasheen. University College Dublin Press, 2001.
• Burns, Edward, ed. A Passion for Joyce: The Letters of Hugh Kenner and Adaline Glasheen. University College Dublin Press, 2008.
• Burns, Edward, ed. Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner. 2 vols., Counterpoint Press, 2018.

References

This page will be placed in the following categories if it is moved to the article namespace.

Categories:

• 1944 births
• 2023 deaths
• American academics