Turnbull Lectures

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History of the Series

In 1878, Percy Graeme Turnbull was born into a prominent Baltimore family, one whose literary connections were already established and growing. Among other substantial correspondence may be found the record of Lawrence and Francese Turnbull's admiration and close friendship with the poet Sidney Lanier, in response to whose grave illness and death in 1881 the Turnbulls solicited contributions and organized remembrances for many years to come. Lawrence Turnbull (1821-1900) went on to become a widely admired publisher, and Francese Turnbull (1845?-1927) wrote novels and established the Woman's Literary Club in Baltimore in 1890, which met regularly, and to which she read many presentations, until the year of her death.

There were five Turnbull children: Edwin Litchfield (1872-1927), Eleanor Laurelle (1875-1964), Percy Graeme (1878-1887), Bayard (1879?-1954), and Grace Hill (1880-1976). Edwin became a concert violinist and musical director, Eleanor published poetry and translations of Spanish poets, Bayard became a renowned architect, and Grace distinguished herself in painting and sculpture. Percy Graeme Turnbull was already showing signs of his substantial literary gifts at the time of his unexpected death in 1887.

In memoriam, the Turnbulls approached Johns Hopkins with an offer to fund visits by prominent scholars and poets. Beginning with Edmund Clarence Stedman in March of 1891, the lecture series quickly established itself, through the generous $1,000 annual donation, as one of the premier lectureships in the nation. A partial list of the luminaries--T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, Harold Bloom, Charles Eliot Norton (whose name now graces a similar series held annually at Harvard), Ronald Paulson, Richard Lattimore, Randall Jarrell, Marianne Moore, Richard Wilbur, and Robert Frost--cannot do justice to the scope of the series, nor to the individual contributions of each invitee. A complete listing of the lectures and an index of the lecturers is available on this site, as well as a growing list of publications stemming from the lectures.

The Turnbull lectures are now in their 114th year, having run almost continually since 1891, with interruptions during the two world wars. Despite the visibility of the lecturers and the strong institutional interest in maintaining the series, a lengthy gap occurred from 1984 to 1996. Shortly after Modernist poetry critic Joseph N. Riddel's lecture in 1984, the series ceased.

Then before the turn of the Millennium, a committee was convened to study the history and future direction of the Turnbull lectures. It was determined the lectures would be offered by the Department of The Writing Seminars. Since that time, a number of critics and poets have delivered lectures: William H. Gass, C. K. Williams, W. S. Merwin, Harold Bloom, Dave Smith (upon his arrival and investiture as the Elliott Coleman Professor of Poetry in the Writing Seminars), William H. Pritchard, Jahan Ramazani, Helen Vendler, and Richard Wilbur. The Turnbull lecture is always done on the general subject of poetry and may be delivered in either semester of the academic year. Admission is free to all interested parties.