Bradner, Leicester

Leicester Bradner (1899-1989), professor of English, was born in New York City on January 14, 1899. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1920, his master’s in 1923, and his Ph.D. in 1926, all from Yale University. He taught at Los Alamos Ranch School in 1920-21 and at Union College in 1924-25, before coming to Brown as instructor in English in 1926. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1930, associate professor in 1934, and professor in 1945. His specialty was the Renaissance in England, but he was also interested in American and nineteenth-century literature. He published Musae Anglicanae: a History of Anglo-Latin Poetry in 1940, and Edmund Spenser and the Faerie Queen in 1948. With Professor C. Arthur Lynch he edited The Latin Epigrams of Thomas More, in 1953. He liked to entertain students in his home. During World War II he held open house for students on Sunday nights during the summer session. His home was also the site of singing parties for both students and faculty. After his retirement in 1968, he continued to work for Brown, donating one day a week to catalogue search projects in the Rockefeller Library. When his work day happened to coincide with the Great Blizzard of 1978, he found himself trapped in Providence, sleeping on the floor of the Holiday Inn until he was able to make his way through the East Side Tunnel to the home of Professor Andrew Sabol, and at the end of the week to return to his home in Wickford. He worked until the early 1980s, when his failing eyesight interfered. He died on April 11, 1989 in North Kingstown.