Born in Chicago, IL, on Oct. 17, 1900, Yvor Winters attended the University of Chicago but was stricken with TB and relocated to the favorable climate of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He eventually enrolled at the University of Colorado where he earned his B.A. and M.A. However, Stanford University is where Winters found his true home, earning a Ph.D. there in 1934 and remaining as a faculty member in the English department until his death in 1964. An outspoken critic, Winters denounced such literary giants as T.S. Elliot and Henry James on moral grounds; his major work of criticism, In Defense of Reason, was published in 1947. Winters received numerous awards, including a National Institute of Arts and Letters award as well as grants from The Guggenheim Foundation and The National Endowment for the Arts.