Joseph Quincy Adams, Jr. (March 23, 1880 – November 10, 1946) was a prominent Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 scholar and the first director of the Folger Shakespeare Library

Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period...

 in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

Adams, a scion of the famous Adams family that produced two American Presidents, John Adams

John Adams

John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...

 and John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...

, was born in Greenville, South Carolina

Greenville, South Carolina

-Law and government:The city of Greenville adopted the Council-Manager form of municipal government in 1976.-History:The area was part of the Cherokee Nation's protected grounds after the Treaty of 1763, which ended the French and Indian War. No White man was allowed to enter, though some families...

, the son of a Rev. Joseph Quincy Adams, a Baptist clergyman, and Mamie Fouchée Adams (née Davis). He received his B.A. degree from Wake Forest College in 1900, and earned an M.A. degree from the same institution in 1901. He continued his education at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 (1902–3), and at the University of Berlin (1907). He pursued a teaching career at several institutions, notably at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, where he also edited the journal Cornell Studies in English (1910–31).

Adams married Helen Banks on January 29, 1931, though she died a short four years later, on September 14, 1935.

Adams was actively involved with the Folger Shakespeare Library from its foundation in 1931. He became the Library's acting director in 1934, and its first regularly appointed director in 1936. He also served as the editor of its periodical publications, as well as the general editor of the New Variorum edition of Shakespeare's works (1935–46). He wrote and published a wide range of books and scholarly articles; he was especially noted for his biography of Shakespeare, first published in 1923.

See also

• G. E. Bentley
  Gerald Eades Bentley
  Gerald Eades Bentley was an American academic and literary scholar, best remembered for his The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, published by Oxford University Press in seven volumes between 1941 and 1968...
  
  
• E. K. Chambers
  Edmund Kerchever Chambers
  Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume history of Elizabethan theater, published in 1923, remains a standard resource for scholars of the period's drama....
  
  
• R. W. Chambers
  Raymond Wilson Chambers
  Raymond Wilson Chambers was a British literary scholar, author, and academic; throughout his career he was associated with University College London .-Life:...
  
  
• W. W. Greg
  Walter Wilson Greg
  Sir Walter Wilson Greg was one of the leading bibliographers and Shakespeare scholars of the 20th century....
  
  
• Andrew Gurr
  Andrew Gurr
  Andrew John Gurr is a contemporary literary scholar who specializes in William Shakespeare and English Renaissance theatre.-Life and work:...
  
  

• Alfred Harbage
  Alfred Harbage
  Alfred Bennett Harbage was an influential Shakespeare scholar of the mid-20th century. He was born in Philadelphia and received his undergraduate degree and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He lectured on Shakespeare both there and at Columbia before becoming a professor at Harvard...
  
  
• Cyrus Hoy
  Cyrus Hoy
  Cyrus Hoy was a literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English at the University of Rochester...
  
  
• Clifford Leech
  Clifford Leech
  Clifford Leech was a prolifically published British-born professor of English at University College at the University of Toronto 1963-74...
  
  
• Kenneth Muir
  Kenneth Muir (scholar)
  Kenneth Arthur Muir was a twentieth-century literary scholar and author, prominent in the fields of Shakespeare studies and English Renaissance theatre...
  
  
• T. M. Parrott
  Thomas Marc Parrott
  Thomas Marc Parrott was a prominent twentieth-century American literary scholar, long a member of the faculty of Princeton University in New Jersey....
  
  

• Alfred W. Pollard
  Alfred W. Pollard
  Alfred William Pollard was an English bibliographer, widely credited for bringing a higher level of scholarly rigor to the study of Shakespearean texts....
  
  
• Samuel Schoenbaum
  Samuel Schoenbaum
  Samuel Schoenbaum was a leading 20th century Shakespearean biographer and scholar.Born in New York, Schoenbaum taught at Northwestern University from 1953 to 1975, serving for the last four years of this period as the Frank Bliss Snyder Professor of English Literature. He later taught at the City...
  
  
• E. M. Thompson
• Charles William Wallace
  Charles William Wallace
  Charles William Wallace was an American scholar and researcher, famed for his discoveries in the field of English Renaissance theatre.Wallace was born in Hopkins, Missouri to Thomas Dickay Wallace and Olive McEwen...
  
  
• John Dover Wilson

External links

• The Folger Shakespeare Library
• Photographs
• Adams, Joseph Quincy.