Percival Hunt was a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh from 1921 until his retirement in 1948. He was chair of the English Department from 1922 until 1941 and built it into one of the country's foremost. Hunt was born on January 9, 1878 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the son of Henry Clay Hunt and Helen Marr Garrison Hunt. He was a graduate of the University of Iowa and began teaching English at that university in 1904. He was in charge of the English Department at Iowa when he resigned in 1921 to come to the University of Pittsburgh. During his tenure, he instituted and taught freshman composition, short story writing, poetry, description and narration, and Shakespeare. Upon his retirement from the University of Pittsburgh in 1948, he turned his efforts to writing books. Samuel Pepys in the Diary was published in 1959, Fifteenth Century England appeared in 1962, The Gift of the Unicorn, essays on writing was well received in 1965 and To What Green Altar? was privately published posthumously in 1969. Percival Hunt died on July 8, 1968 at the Home for Aged Protestants in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.
From the description of Percival Hunt papers, 1918-1968. (University of Pittsburgh). WorldCat record id: 589380642
