Ralph L. Rusk

Ralph Leslie Rusk (1888-1962) was an American literary scholar and author renowned for his definitive works on Ralph Waldo Emerson, including the six-volume The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1939) and the Pulitzer-nominated biography The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1949), which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Born in Rantoul, Illinois, he taught English at institutions such as the University of the Philippines, Indiana University, and Columbia University, where he was a professor from 1925 until his retirement in 1954.