Gunter, Susan E. 1947-

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Gunter, Susan E. 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born 1947; children: two sons. Education: Allegheny College, M.A., 1971; University of South Carolina, Ph.D., 1986. Hobbies and other interests: Downhill skiing, snowshoeing, weight training, water aerobics, knitting, camping, and gardening.

ADDRESSES:

Home—UT. Office—Westminster College, 1840 S. 1300 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84105. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, UT, professor of English, 1988—; Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria, served as a senior Fulbright lecturer. Houghton Library, Harvard University, William Dean Howells Fellow in American Literature, 2004-05.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Merit Award for Best Humanities Grants, Utah Humanities Council, 1995; Eistedfodd Poetry Prize for best lyric poem, 2001; National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Dear Munificent Friends: Henry James's Letters to Four Women, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1999.

(Editor, with Steven H. Jobe) Dearly Beloved Friends: Henry James's Letters to Younger Men, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 2002.

Contributor of scholarly articles to such journals as Igitur, Gay Lesbian Quarterly, and Henry James and Homo-Eroticism; contributor of poetry to publications including College English, Poet Lore, Weber Studies, Ellipses, and translated into Bulgarian for Sofia Literary Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Susan E. Gunter serves as a professor of English at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she joined the faculty in 1988. Gunter has also written across a number of genres, providing scholarly articles for journals including Igitur, Gay Lesbian Quarterly, and Henry James and Homo-Eroticism. Her poetry has also been published in several periodicals and translated into Bulgarian for the Sofia Literary Magazine. Her work has earned her grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a merit award from the Utah Humanities Council. Gunter is also the editor of several books focusing on her primary research interest, writer Henry James. In Dear Munificent Friends: Henry James's Letters to Four Women, a collection of previously unpublished letters, James corresponds with his sister-in-law Alice Howe Gibbens James, Mary Cadwalader Jones, Margaret Frances Prothero, and Lady Louisa Wolseley. Charles Nash, in a review for Library Journal, remarked that the collection "offers us a witty and loving curmudgeon with an enormous respect for women." In a contribution for the Modern Language Review, Tamara L. Follini commented that "one marvels afresh at the writer's generous use of his time and personal resources, but this volume gives an especially satisfying glimpse of how the intimacies he nurtured in turn nurtured him, and of the care with which James endowed and made significant the daily gestures of his life."

Dearly Beloved Friends: Henry James's Letters to Younger Men, a companion to the earlier collection of letters, includes letters James wrote later in life to four younger gentlemen: Hendrik Andersen, Dudley Jocelyn Persse, Howard Sturgis, and Hugh Walpole. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted that "elegant introductory remarks and helpful footnotes provide crucial context and background information not necessarily available in letters." Jim Marks, in a review for the Lambda Book Report, remarked: "The correspondence is beautifully edited, lavishly footnoted, and abounding in useful information."

Gunter told CA: "I was inspired to write by James Dickey, when I took a course from him on writing poetry. From him I learned to pay careful attention to everything that I see and hear."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, March-April, 2002, Stephanie Foote, review of Dearly Beloved Friends: Henry James's Letters to Younger Men, p. 75.

Choice, July-August, 2002, J.J. Bernardette, review of Dearly Beloved Friends, p. 1960.

English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, spring, 2003, Wendy Graham, review of Dearly Beloved Friends, p. 210; spring, 2005, Marysa Demoor, review of Dearly Beloved Friends, p. 108.

Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, July-August, 2002, Jim Nawrocki, "Man of (Many) Letters," p. 42.

Lambda Book Report, March, 2002, Jim Marks, "High Tea," p. 19.

Library Journal, September 15, 1999, Charles Nash, review of Dear Munificent Friends: Henry James's Letters to Four Women, p. 83; January, 2002, Charles C. Nash, review of Dearly Beloved Friends, p. 102.

Modern Language Review, April, 2002, Tamara L. Follini, review of Dear Munificent Friends, p. 405.

Publishers Weekly, August 30, 1999, "Scarlet Letters," p. 69; December 24, 2001, review of Dearly Beloved Friends, p. 53.

Times Literary Supplement, May 24, 2002, Philip Horne, "Embracing Occasions and Possibilities," p. 13.

Victorian Studies, autumn, 2003, Dennis Denisoff, review of Dearly Beloved Friends, p. 122.