Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Lounsbury, Thomas Raynesford

LOUNSBURY, THOMAS RAYNESFORD, an American scholar; born in Ovid, N. Y., Jan. 1, 1838. He was graduated at Yale in 1859, and led the life of a student in Anglo-Saxon and early English, and a writer in critical and biographical works, till 1862, when he enlisted as a volunteer in the Union army, served as 1st lieutenant of the 126th New York Volunteers, and was mustered out at the close of the war; after 1871 occupied the chair of Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. Among his published works are Chaucer's “House of Fame” and “Parlement of Foules”; “History of the English Language” (1879); biography of James Fenimore Cooper in “American Men of Letters” series (1883); his crowning work, which brought him great celebrity, “Studies in Chaucer, his Life and Writings” (3 vols. 1892); “Shakespeare and Voltaire” (1902); “The Standard of Pronunciation in English” (1904); “The Standard of Usage in English” (1908); “Shakespeare as Dramatic Artist” (1912). He died in 1915.