The New International Encyclopædia/Trent, William Peterfield

TRENT, William Peterfield (1862—). An American literary critic, born in Richmond, Va. He was educated at the University of Virginia and at the Johns Hopkins University. From 1888 to 1900 he was professor of English and history in the University of the South (Sewanee, Tenn.), and in 1893-1900 was dean of the academic department of that institution. In 1900 he was appointed professor of English literature in Columbia University. He founded the Sewanee Review in 1892, and edited it until 1900. He contributed articles in American literature to The New International Encyclopædia, and published the following works: English Culture in Virginia (1889); William Gilmore Simms (1892); Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime (1896); The Authority of Criticism (1899); Robert E. Lee (1899); Verses (1899); John Milton (1899); War and Civilization (1901); Progress of the United States During the Nineteenth Century (1901); and A History of American Literature (1903), besides editions of school texts of Balzac's Comédie Humaine (32 vols., 1900) and of Colonial Prose and Poetry (with B. W. Wells, 3 vols., 1901).