Terris, Virginia R.

Virginia R. Terris was born in Brooklyn NY in 1917 and grew up in rural Chester NJ. She received her BA in English from the NJ College for Women (now Douglass College, part of Rutgers University) in 1938. After marrying, and while raising four children, she obtained a Master’s degree in English and American literature in 1965 from Adelphi University in Garden City, New York, and a PhD from New York University in New York City, New York in 1973, both on the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson. She joined the full-time faculty at Adelphi University where she taught English and American literature until her retirement as a full Professor in 1983.

Her academic writings dealt with general literary topics and were influenced by the growing interest in women’s studies during the 1960’s and 1970’s. In addition to editing a book on the teaching of poetry and an introductory essay for a collection of short stories, she also contributed biographies to an encyclopedia on American women writers and published essays on and reviews of the work of contemporary women poets. Her study of Mary MacLane was a natural extension of this interest. On the basis of MacLane’s books and her reportage in the New York World and other newspapers, Dr. Terris stressed the similarity of MacLane to American realists such as Twain, Crane, James, Dreiser, Garland and others while downplaying the sensationalism surrounding her life and works.

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