Chase, Lewis Nathaniel, 1873-1937

Lewis Chase taught in the English Department at Duke University beginning in 1929. It is unclear when/if he left the University. He died in 1937.

Lewis Nathaniel Chase was born in 1873 in Sidney, Maine and grew up in Rochester, New York. He earned his A.B. in 1895 from Columbia University. After graduation, he studied stage dancing at Daly's Theater and with several private instructors. He spent one year in Philadelphia selling office equipment before returning to Columbia University and earning his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in 1898 and 1903, respectively. He subsequently taught English at the University of Indiana, the University of Louisville, and the University of Bordeaux in France. In 1910, he made a research trip to London, where an old acquaintance suggested that Chase write a volume on Poe for the Harrap's Poetry and Life series; this inaugurated Chase's exhaustive research into Poe's life. In 1916, Chase returned to the U.S. and taught Literature at the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Rochester. He relocated to India in 1920, where he was appointed professor of English Literature at Aligarh Muslim University. Within a few years, he moved to China, where he taught at four different universities. Eventually, he returned to the U.S., teaching at the University of California, the California School of Technology, Riverside College and Union College before joining the faculty of the English Department at Duke University in 1929. Besides Edgar Allan Poe, Chase also specialized in the work of Georgia poet Thomas Holley Chivers, utilizing Duke's collection of Chivers manuscripts. Chase died in 1937.

Editor, author, and educator.

Biographical Note