The Correspondence of Northrop Frye and Helen Kemp, 1932-1939: Volume 1
ISBN: 9781442681057
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Toronto Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter



This collection of 266 letters, cards, and telegrams that Helen Kemp and Northrop Frye wrote to each other forms a compelling narrative of their early relationship. The letters reveal Frye's early talent as a writer.


Herman Northrop Frye was born in 1912 in Quebec, Canada. His mother educated him at home until the fourth grade. After graduating from the University of Toronto, he studied theology at Emmanuel College for several years and actually worked as a pastor before deciding he preferred the academic life. He eventually obtained his master's degree from Oxford, and taught English at the University of Toronto for more than four decades.

Frye's first two books, Fearful Symmetry (1947) and Anatomy of Criticism (1957) set forth the influential literary principles upon which he continued to elaborate in his numerous later works. These include Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology, The Well-Tempered Critic, and The Great Code: The Bible and Literature.

Frye died in 1991.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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