Cynthia Griffin Wolff, acclaimed biographer and longtime MIT professor, dies at 87

Cynthia Griffin Wolff, a noted scholar of American literature, passed away on July 25. She was 87.

Wolff joined the humanities faculty at MIT in 1980 and was named the Class of 1922 Professor of Humanities in 1985. She taught in the Literature Section, and later moved to the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. Her expertise was in the exploration of 19th and 20th century female American writers. She retired from MIT in 2003.

Wolff was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, on Aug. 20, 1934. She was a graduate of Radcliffe College, attended Harvard Medical School, and in 1965 received her PhD in English at Harvard University. Before her arrival at MIT, she was a tenured professor of English and American literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Wolff wrote two major literary biographies. “A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton” was published in 1977. That was followed by the 1986 biography “Emily Dickinson.” Wolff worked for several years to unearth new and original primary sources before even starting the process of writing a first draft. She sought to analyze her subject’s literary oeuvre with a complete understanding of the authors’ historical and personal contexts. She also edited numerous books that brought long-overdue attention to American women writers.

Several years before her retirement, Wolff began composing a third literary biography on writer Willa Cather. Wolff continued work after her retirement but found herself unable to bring it to fruition and eventually put it aside.

“A devoted teacher and an inspired scholar, Cynthia Griffin Wolff cemented her literary legacy worldwide with her highly influential biographies of Edith Wharton and Emily Dickinson,” says Kenneth Manning, the Thomas Meloy Professor of Rhetoric (programs in Writing and Humanistic Studies and Science, Technology, and Society) at MIT who worked with Wolff during her tenure. “I was anticipating the same creative force in her biographical research on Willa Cather.”

Following her retirement, Wolff spent much of her time in South Dennis, Massachusetts, in an early 19th century Cape Colonial she restored. She later moved into the Orchard Cove senior community in Canton, Massachusetts.

Wolff is survived by her sons Patrick and Tobias; Patrick’s wife, Diana; and two grandchildren, Samuel and Athena.