Norton, Charles Eliot

Charles Eliot Norton, (born Nov. 16, 1827, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.—died Oct. 21, 1908, Cambridge), American scholar and man of letters, an idealist and reformer by temperament, who exhibited remarkable energy in a wide range of activity.

After graduating from Harvard in 1846, Norton opened a night school in Cambridge, was director of a housing experiment in Boston, and worked zealously as an editor for the Union cause during the Civil War. From 1864 to 1868 he was coeditor of the North American Review, and he helped found The Nation in 1865. From 1874 to 1898 he lectured on the history of art at Harvard, where he was one of the most popular teachers of the day. A friend of many literary men, including Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Ruskin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell, he contributed valuable editions of their letters and other biographical material. Norton also wrote on art and edited collections of poetry, notably that of John Donne (1895–1905). Probably Norton’s best literary work was his prose translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy (1891–92). His letters, published in 1913, were edited by Sara Norton and M.A. De Wolfe Howe.