“Carl (Clinton) and Mark Van Doren: (1885-1950, 1894-1972) U.S. writers and teachers. The Van Doren brothers were born in Hope, Illinois. Carl, who taught at Columbia University 1911-1930), edited the Cambridge History of American Literature (1917-21) and journals. His critical works include the biography Benjamin Franklin (1938, Pulitzer Prize). Mark taught at Columbia 1920-59. He published more than 20 volumes of verse, including Spring Thunder (1924) and Collected Poems (1922-38) (1939, Pulitzer Prize). He wrote three novels and several volumes of short stories and edited anthologies. His literary criticism includes work on John Dryden, William Shakespeare, and Nathanial Hawthorne as well as Introduction to Poetry (1951), which examines shorter classic poems of English and American literature.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.