Pinney, Thomas 1932–

PERSONAL:

Born April 23, 1932, in Ottawa, KS; son of John J. and Lorene Pinney; married Sherrill Ohman, September 1, 1956; children: Anne, Jane, Sarah. Education: Beloit College, B.A., 1954; Yale University, Ph. D., 1960.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Pomona, CA. Office—Department of English, Pomona College, Claremont, CA 91711.

CAREER:

Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, instructor in English, 1957-61; Yale University, New Haven, CT, instructor in English, 1961-62; Pomona College, Claremont, CA, assistant professor, 1962-67, associate professor, 1967-73, professor of English, beginning in 1973, Spalding Professor, William M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and chairperson of department, 1984—, professor emeritus.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Guggenheim fellow, 1966, 1984; grants from American Council of Learned Societies, 1973 and 1984; Mellon fellow, Pomona College, 1974; National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, 1980; IACP Cookbook Award, Beer and Spirits category, International Association of Culinary Professionals, 2006, for A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present; Mellon Emeritus fellowship, 2006.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) George Eliot, Essays, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1963.

(Editor, with John Clive) Thomas Babington Macaulay, Selected Writings of Thomas Babington Macaulay, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1972.

(Editor) Thomas Babington Macaulay, The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), Volume I: 1807-February, 1831, 1974, Volume II: March, 1831-December, 1833, 1974, Volume III: January, 1834-August, 1841, 1976, Volume IV: September, 1841-December, 1848, 1977, Volume V: January, 1849-December, 1855, 1981, Volume VI: January, 1856-December, 1859, 1981.

A Short Handbook and Style Sheet, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1977.

(Editor) Thomas Babington Macaulay, The Selected Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1983.

(Editor) Rudyard Kipling, Kipling's India: Uncollected Sketches, 1884-1888, Schocken (New York, NY), 1985.

(Editor) Rudyard Kipling, The Day's Work, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1987.

(Editor) Rudyard Kipling, Kipling in California, Friends of the Bancroft Library, University of California (Berkeley, CA), 1989.

A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1989.

(Editor) Rudyard Kipling, The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, University of Iowa Press (Iowa City, IA), Volume 1: 1872-1889, Volume 2: 1890-1899, Volume 3: 1900-1910, Volume 4: 1911-1919, Volume 5: 1920-1930, Volume 6: 1931-1936, 1990-2004.

(Editor) Rudyard Kipling, Rudyard Kipling: Something of Myself and Other Autobiographical Writings, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor, and author of introduction and notes) Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Play, Penguin (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor, with Rosalind Kennedy) Rudyard Kipling, Kipling Down Under: Rudyard Kipling's Visit to Australia, 1891: A Narrative with Documents, Xlibris, 2000.

(Editor, with David Alan Richards) Rudyard Kipling, Kipling and His First Publisher: Correspondence of Rudyard Kipling with Thacker, Spink and Co., 1886-1890, Rivendale Press (High Wycombe, Bucks, England), 2001.

A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2005.

John Ignatius Bleasdale, Book Club of California (San Francisco, CA), 2006.

Contributor to Book of California Wine, by Ernest Born, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1984.

SIDELIGHTS:

English scholar Thomas Pinney collected a great many of the writings, and especially the letters, of both Thomas Babington Macaulay and Rudyard Kipling. A series of volumes collecting the letters of the former were written over a period from 1974 to 1981, and his six-volume series that collects the Kipling letters was published from 1990 to 2004. Covering the period from 1872 to 1936, the letters provide insight into the world in which Kipling lived and wrote and the people of the period. The volumes contain photographs and drawings by Kipling, who had received instruction as a child and whose father was an artist. An extensive index makes the series more accessible. Jeffrey Meyers, who reviewed the third and fourth volumes in English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, wrote that Pinney "has labored heroically to produce in his exemplary notes a concise social and political history of Edwardian and early Georgian England…. Kipling's letters also cast new light on his writing. He mentions the early influence of Walt Whitman and the stylistic discipline (shared with Hemingway) that came from sending telegraphic dispatches."

Pinney is also a wine scholar, having published two very well-received volumes on the history of wine in the United States, divided into two periods and published fifteen years apart. They include A History of Wine in America: From the Beginnings to Prohibition and The History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present. Pinney discusses wine not only in terms of how the grapes are grown and the wine created, but also the part it has played in American culture. He provides precise statistics as to the growth of the industry in California, and also covers other wine-growing regions of the country. Michael Franz reviewed the most recent volume for Wine Review Online, noting that both "are impressive accomplishments, and not least among their virtues is the fact that they are such pleasures to read."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2005, Mark Knoblauch, review of A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present, p. 1736.

English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, winter, 2004, Jeffrey Myers, reviews of The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, Volume 3: 1900-1910, and Volume 4: 1911-1919, p. 94; winter, 2006, D.H. Stewart, reviews of The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, Volume 5: 1920-1930, and Volume 6: 1931-1936, p. 63.

Library Journal, June 1, 2005, John Charles, review of A History of Wine in America, p. 164.

Spectator, December 18, 2004, Juliet Townsend, reviews of The Letters of Rudyard Kipling, Volume 5: 1920-1930, and Volume 6: 1931-1936, p. 89.

ONLINE

Wine Review Online,http://www.winereviewonline.com/franz_wine_books_06.cfm/ (January 24, 2006), Michael Franz, review of A History of Wine in America.