A tribute to Justin Kaplan

In tribute to an old friend

Justin Kaplan at home

Justin Kaplan ’45, G ’47, who won a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his first biography of Mark Twain, died on March 2. His biographies of Walt Whitman and Lincoln Steffens, and his other books about life and lives in America attracted readers for their humanity and style as well as for their substance. (For his take on biographical sketches by another author, Rachel Cohen ’94, read his review of A Chance Meeting: Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists.) He also tackled autobiography, writing a joint memoir, Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York with his wife, novelist Anne Bernays, who survives him.

Kaplan was also a longtime friend of and occasional contributor to this magazine. When he was reviewing proofs for the seventeenth edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, his second go-round as editor of that cultural landmark, then managing editor Christopher Reed paid him a visit to learn something about his modus operandi: “What the Meaning of the Word ‘Is’ Is.”

 

 

 

You might also like

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

Most popular

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

Is the Constitution Broken?

Harvard legal scholars debate the state of our founding national document.

Explore More From Current Issue

James Muller in white lab coat leaning on railing in hospital hallway.

Free Speech, the Bomb—and Donald Trump

A Harvard cardiologist on the unlikely alliances that shaped a global movement to prevent nuclear war

John Goldberg

Harvard in the News

University layoffs, professors in court, and a new Law School dean

Brandon Terry, wearing a blue suit, standing before The Embrace, a large bronze sculpture of intertwined arms in Boston Common.

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress