Brander Matthews Books

James Brander Matthews was a pioneering American writer and educator who championed theater as a subject worthy of formal academic study. As the first full-time professor of dramatic literature at an American university, his interests spanned from classical playwrights to the burgeoning realism of his era. While his own fiction and plays are largely forgotten, his scholarly works on French dramatists and American literature offered insightful and rigorous analyses. Matthews' enduring legacy lies in his passionate advocacy for theater as a performance art and his demanding, yet engaging, approach to teaching stagecraft.