Thomas Herbert Johnson

Thomas H. Johnson
Born
Thomas Herbert Johnson

(1902-04-27)April 27, 1902
DiedJanuary 3, 1985(1985-01-03) (aged 82)
Known forEdward Taylor: Poetical Works, Literary History of the United States, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson: An Interpretive Biography, The Oxford Companion to American History
SpouseCatherine Rice
ChildrenLaura Johnson Waterman, Thomas Johnson
Parent(s)Herbert Thomas Johnson, Myra Johnson
AwardsThe Lawrenceville School Masters Award
Academic background
EducationMontpelier High School, Dartmouth College, Williams College, Harvard University
Academic work
DisciplineAmerican literature
Sub-disciplinePuritan scholar, Emily Dickinson

Thomas Herbert Johnson (April 27, 1902 – January 3, 1985) was an American scholar, teacher, editor, and bibliographer who specialized in American literature.

His primary contributions include the rediscovery of the Puritan poet Edward Taylor (c. 1664–1729), whose poems he edited and published as The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor (1939). Johnson also served as co-editor of Literary History of the United States (1948, 3 vols.), for which he compiled the third volume, the Bibliography; and his editions of the writings of Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) comprising the Poems (1955, 3 vols.) and the Letters (1958, 3 vols.). In 1955, he published Emily Dickinson: An Interpretive Biography. Before Johnson’s work, no accurate and complete edition of Dickinson’s poems or letters had been published. He also authored The Oxford Companion to American History (1966).