Johnston, George Burke, 1907-1995

George Burke Johnston, the son of George D. and Eleanor McCorvey Johnston, was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on September 8, 1907. After graduating from the University of Alabama (BA, 1929), Johnston obtained his master's and doctoral degrees in English from Columbia University (1930 and 1943, respectively). In 1936, he married Mary Tabb Lancaster (1916-2003), the daughter of Dabney S. Lancaster; the Johnstons would have four children. Johnston served as an English instructor at Virginia Tech from 1930 until 1933, when he returned to the University of Alabama to join the English Department as a professor.

Johnston became a well known Shakespearean scholar as well as an expert on English dramatist/poet Ben Jonson, about whom he wrote his dissertation and published two books: Ben Jonson, Poet (1945) and The Poems of Ben Jonson (1955). He held fellowships at Columbia University, Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

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