GEMMETT, Robert J(ames) 1936-

PERSONAL: Born March 11, 1936, in Schenectady, NY; son of A. James and Dorothy (MacFarlane) Gemmett; married Kendra Baxter, January 25, 1964; children: Stephen, Scott, David, Kerry. Education: Siena College, B.A. (cum laude), 1959; University of Massachusetts, M.A., 1962; Syracuse University, Ph.D., 1967.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of English, State University of New York—College at Brockport, Hartwell 202B, 350 New Campus Dr., Brockport, NY 14420-2914. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Clarkson College of Technology, Potsdam, NY, instructor in English, 1964-65; State University of New York—College at Brockport, Brockport, NY, associate professor, 1967-70, professor of English, 1970-92, department chair, 1975-79, dean of humanities, 1979-82, dean of letters and sciences, 1982-92; State University of New York—College at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, provost and vice president for academic affairs, 1992-97; State University of New York—College at Brockport, Brockport, NY, professor of English, 1997—. Military service: U.S. Army, 1959; became second lieutenant.

AWARDS, HONORS: Outstanding Educators in America recognition of merit, 1975.

WRITINGS:

William Beckford, Twayne, 1977.

Beckford's Fonthill: The Rise of a Romantic Icon, Michael Russell (Wilby, Norwich, England), 2003.

Author of introduction, Men of Letters, Volume III, Mansell Information Publishing (London, England), 1972; and Vathek, 1786 and 1787 editions, by William Beckford, Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1972. Contributor of essays to Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1987, and Classic Fantasy Writers, edited by Howard Bloom, Chelsea House (New York, NY), 1994. Contributor of articles to English Miscellany, Philological Quarterly, Gazette des Beaux Arts, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Library Chronicle, American Book Collector, Etudes Anglaises, and other English journals.

EDITOR

William Beckford, Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1969.

William Beckford, Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incidents, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1971.

William Beckford, Episodes of Vathek, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975.

(And author of introduction and notes) The Consummate Collector: William Beckford's Letters to His Bookseller, Michael Russell (Wilby, Norwich, England), 2000.

Associate editor, English Record, 1967-69.

SIDELIGHTS: Robert J. Gemmett's edition of William Beckford's letters, The Consummate Collector, was well received by Times Literary Supplement reviewer Anthony Hobson. He claimed that "Robert Gemmett has succeeded most creditably in deciphering Beckford's difficult hand, which frequently baffled Bentley's clerk in the 1890s." Gemmett's 2003 book, Beckford's Fonthhill: The Rise of a Romantic Icon, focuses on the history of Fonthill Abbey.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Spector, Robert Donald, The English Gothic: A Bibliographic Guide to Writers from Horace Walpole to Mary Shelley, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1984.

PERIODICALS

Times Literary Supplement, July 20, 2001, Anthony Hobson, review of The Consummate Collector: William Beckford's Letters to His Bookseller, p. 36.