Fredson Thayer Bowers was an American bibliographer

Bibliography

Bibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...

 and scholar of textual editing

Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

.

Life

Bowers was a graduate of Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 and Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 (Ph.D.). He taught at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 before moving to the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

 in 1938.

Bowers served as a commander in the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 during World War II leading a group of codebreakers

Cryptanalysis

Cryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...

.

Bowers was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

 in 1958.
In 1969 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Bibliographical Society

Bibliographical Society

Founded in 1892, the Bibliographical Society is the senior learned society dealing with the study of the book and its history, based in London, England....

 (of London).

He retired in 1975 and at the time of his death, he was Linden Kent Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Virginia. His wife, novelist Nancy Hale, died before him in 1988. The couple had three sons and a daughter: Fredson Bowers, Jr., Stephen, Peter and Joan.

Further reading

• Encyclopedia Virginia: Fredson Bowers
• Library of Congress bibliography
• Studies in Bibliography 46 (1993) includes:
  • G. Thomas Tanselle, "The Life and Work of Fredson Bowers"
  • Martin C. Battestin, "Fredson Thayer Bowers: A Checklist and Chronology"
• Mirjam M. Foot, Bookbinders at Work: Their Roles and Methods (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2006) ISBN 1584561688 (about the work of W. W. Greg and Fredson Bowers)