R.W.B. Lewis, 84; Literary Critic Won Pulitzer for Biography

R.W.B. Lewis, 84, a literary critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Edith Wharton, died Thursday of natural causes at his home in Bethany, Conn.

Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis was educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago and served in Army intelligence during World War II, earning the rank of major. He taught at Bennington and Smith Colleges and Rutgers University before moving to Yale, where he was a campus fixture from 1959 to 1988.

But he established his larger reputation as a writer. His doctoral dissertation turned into his scholarly first book, “The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy and Tradition in the 19th Century,” published in 1955 and considered a landmark in defining the emerging field of American studies. Among his other books are “The Picaresque Saint” in 1959, “Trials of the Word” in 1965, “The Poetry of Hart Crane” in 1967, “American Characters” in 1999 and “Dante,” published last year.

He achieved his greatest honors in biography, notably with the 1975 “Edith Wharton: A Biography” which received the Pulitzer, the Bancroft Prize for American history and the first National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. His 1991 “The Jameses: A Family Narrative” about Henry, William and Alice James, also was well received. Lewis earned the gold medal for biography by the American Academy of Arts and Letters two years ago.