Brooks was born inPlainfield, New Jersey, in 1886 and graduated fromHarvard University in 1908. As a student he published his first book, a collection of poetry calledVerses by Two Undergraduates, co-written with his friendJohn Hall Wheelock.[1]
Brooks was a long-time resident ofBridgewater, Connecticut, which built a town library wing in his name. Although a decade-long fund-raising effort was abandoned in 1972, a hermit in Los Angeles, Charles E. Piggott, with no connection to Bridgewater surprised the town by leaving money for the library in his will. With $210,000 raised, the library addition went up in 1980.[5]
Among his works, the bookThe Ordeal of Mark Twain (1920) analyzes the literary progression ofSamuel L. Clemens and attributes shortcomings to Clemens's mother and wife. In 1925 he published a translation from French of the 1920 biography ofHenry David Thoreau by Leon Bazalgette, entitledHenry Thoreau, Bachelor of Nature.
His influential 1918 essay "On Creating a Usable Past" argued that the United States lacked its own coherent cultural arts tradition.[6] HistorianConstance Rourke engaged his claim and set out to show a unique American tradition.[7]
^Schlueter, Jennifer (December 2008). "'A theatrical race': American Identity and Popular Performance in the Writings of Constance M. Rourke".Theatre Journal.60 (4). Baltimore:529–543.doi:10.1353/tj.0.0090.
Blake, Casey Nelson (1990).Beloved Community: The Cultural Criticism of Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck Brooks, Waldo Frank & Lewis Mumford. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.ISBN0-8078-1935-2.
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