Former Leverett Master, Victorian Scholar, Dies at 85

Jerome H. Buckley, a renowned expert on the Victorian era and a former Leverett House master, died Jan. 28 of respiratory failure. He was 85.

“Professor Buckley was one of the world’s most eminent scholars of his generation in the field of Victorian literature and culture,” Lawrence Buell, chair of the Department of English and American Literature and Language, wrote in an e-mail. “He will be remembered with affection and respect as a valued colleague, teacher and friend.”

Buell called Buckley’s best-known book, The Victorian Temper, “one of the field-defining books” in the past half-century, and added that Buckley’s work covered a wide range of topics in Victorian poetry and prose.

Buckley, who was Gurney professor of English literature emeritus, came to Harvard in 1969 at the height of campus turmoil.

That same year, he became master of Leverett House, a position he held until 1970.

“Jerry was a devoted member of our Senior Common Room,” Leverett House Master Howard Georgi wrote in an e-mail. “He and his wife Elizabeth came to many events and their connection with the House and its students was very important to them.”

Current Gurney Professor of English Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature James Engell remembered Buckley—who retired in 1987—as extremely selfless and giving.

“He was extraordinarily generous to both colleagues and students,” Engell said. “At a time before the word accessibility had entered the vocabulary, Jerry Buckley would have been called ultra-accessible.”

Born in Toronto, Canada, Buckley earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto in 1939, and did his post-graduate work at Harvard, where he earned his doctoral degree in 1942.

Published in 1945, Buckley’s doctoral dissertation on poet William Henley became his first book, William Ernest Henley: A Study in the Counter-Decadence of the Nineties.

Buckley, who became a U.S. citizen in 1948, was a Guggenheim fellow in 1946-47 and again in 1964. He was awarded Phi Beta Kappa’s Christian Gaus Prize in 1952. Buckley was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as a member of the Board of Syndics of the Harvard University Press. He also taught at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University before returning to Harvard in 1969.

“His breadth of knowledge was enormous, unusual even for his own generation,” Engell said. “He had an astonishing ability to cover his field and will be remembered as somebody whose contributions were really significant.”

Buckley authored several books during his lifetime, including The Victorian Temper: A Study in Literary Culture (1951), Tennyson: The Growth of a Poet (1960) and The Turning Key: Autobiography and the Subjective Impulse Since 1800 (1984).

Buckley is survived by his sister Mary Buckley, his wife Elizabeth, their three children, Nicholas Buckley, Victoria Buckley and Eleanor Sugarman, and seven grandchildren.