I.A. Richards correspondence and typescript

I.A. (Ivor Armstrong) Richards (1893-1979), literary critic, poet, and rhetorician, came to Harvard as a lecturer in English at the Harvard School of Education in 1939. In 1944, he was named University Professor at Harvard College, a position he held until 1963. Richards was an influential figure in the development of the New Criticism movement in literary theory which emphasized the close reading of texts to ascertain how a literary work functions as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object and an advocate for the usage of Basic English, an English-based international auxiliary language of 850 words to ease the learning of English.

Born in Sandbach, England in 1893, Richards was educated at Clifton College and then Magdalene College at Cambridge. Following the completion of his studies, Richards taught moral physics and English at Magdalene College from 1922 to 1929. During this time, Richards began collaborating with philosopher and writer Charles Kay Ogden on topics including literary criticism and Basic English which was developed in the 1920s by Ogden. While in China in the 1930s, Richards promoted its usage while teaching at Tsinghua University in Beijing (1929-1930)and later as the director of the Orthological Institute of China (1936-1939). Their partnership produced four published works, including Foundations of Aesthetics (1922), The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (1923), Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar (1930), and The Times of India Guide to Basic English (1938).

In 1939, Richards came to Harvard as a lecturer in English at the Harvard School of Education. Five years later in 1944, Richards was named University Professor, a position he held until 1963. Richards founded Language Research Incorporated, later known as Language Research, Inc., with Christine Gibson and others in 1941 which aimed to develop, publish, and disseminate materials to aid the process of learning of English and other languages; and encouraged the usage of Basic English. Later in his career, Richards published several volumes of poetry.

Richards married Dorothy Pilley in 1926. Richards died on September 7, 1979 in Cambridge, England.