Marquis Who’s Who Honors Edward M. Cifelli, PhD, for Expertise in American Literature
Edward M. Cifelli, PhD, is a retired professor of American literature and the author of books noted for balancing reliable scholarship with reader accessibility.
Throughout his tenure, Dr. Cifelli was known for his dedication to teaching and his ability to inspire students to form new goals—and achieve them.
DADE CITY, FL, February 25, 2025 /24-7PressRelease/ — Edward M. Cifelli, PhD, has been selected for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who. As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Dr. Cifelli has made notable contributions to American literature as an educator, biographer, memoirist, and essayist; he has authored, edited, and compiled ten volumes of literary history and criticism. Ancillary to that work, in 1994 he founded Americana Lectures, a speaker’s bureau in New Jersey, which sent speakers around the state to discuss wide-ranging aspects of American culture. He operated that service for twelve years.
Throughout his longstanding career, Dr. Cifelli has been known for his contributions to literary studies as seen through the joint lenses of biography and criticism; he is also known for his experiments in various forms of autobiographical writing: memoirs, essays, letters, and journals.
Among Dr. Cifelli’s noteworthy publications is “John Ciardi: A Biography” (1997), which examined the life and career of poet John Ciardi. The book was well-reviewed and received the Outstanding Academic Book award that year from Choice magazine; it also earned recognition from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities as its 1998 Honor Book. Further, Dr. Cifelli edited several collections of Ciardi’s works, including “The Collected Poems of John Ciardi” (1997) and “The Selected Letters of John Ciardi” (1991).
Cifelli has also written books about poets from the 18th and 19th centuries, David Humphreys and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Longfellow in Love” (2018) and “David Humphreys [The Life and Works of an American Founding Father]” (1982). The latter biography provides an in-depth look at Humphreys’ literary achievements and is considered a key study of an important figure from the Revolutionary War era.
Further, Dr. Cifelli has contributed to the scholarly journals with essays, book reviews, and critical studies on a wide range of American authors, like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Robert Frost, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gwendolyn Brooks, Miller Williams, Emily Dickinson, and many others. He has also written articles for the American National Biography, the Encyclopedia of New Jersey, the Reference Guide to American Literature, and American Writers Before 1800: A Biographical and Critical Reference Guide. He has also written introductions, prefaces, and afterwords to six Signet Classics volumes on John Milton, Longfellow, and Dante.
Apart from his scholarly work, Dr. Cifelli penned “Random Miracles: A Memoir” (2011), “Selected Letters of Edward M. Cifelli” (2020) and “Making My Way: Selected Journals” (2023), all of which reflect on his own life experiences. He also managed to write nearly 300 movie reviews in a 13-year career writing for a daily newspaper, the New Jersey Herald.
Prior to his retirement, Dr. Cifelli had a distinguished academic career as a professor of American literature. Between 1965 and 2007, he taught at such diverse institutions of higher learning as Texas Tech, Rutgers University, Upsala College, the University of South Florida, Centenary College, and the County College of Morris in New Jersey, where he taught for 32 years. Throughout his tenure, Dr. Cifelli was known for his dedication to teaching and his ability to inspire students to form new goals—and achieve them.
Dr. Cifelli’s involvement in professional organizations further underscores his career commitment. For many years, he was a member of the Modern Language Association and co-founded the New Jersey College English Association, memberships that demonstrate his leadership and influence in academic circles. His own academic journey began with a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University, which laid the foundation for his future endeavors in literature. He later earned a Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy degree in American Civilization from New York University.
Dr. Cifelli’s contributions to literature and language continue to resonate within the academic and literary communities, a testimony to his professionalism, his lifelong study of American culture, and his attention to the craft of writing.
About Marquis Who’s Who®:
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who’s Who in America®, Marquis Who’s Who® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Who’s Who in America® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. The suite of Marquis® publications can be viewed at the official Marquis Who’s Who® website, www.marquiswhoswho.com.
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