Sullivan, Walter
Dates
- Existence: 4 January 1924 - 15 August 2006
Biography
Walter Sullivan, a native of Nashville, graduated from Vanderbilt in 1947. He served as a Professor of English at Vanderbilt for 51 years, retiring in 2000. Professor Sullivan was personal friends with Donald Davidson, Peter Taylor, Allen Tate, Andrew Lytle, and Robert Penn Warren. He was a student of Richmond Beatty, Donald Davidson, Walter Clyde Curry, and Claude Finney, each contributing to his dedication to literature and teaching. Professor Sullivan earned a Master’s of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa and served in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years during World War II. He wrote fiction, authoring numerous articles, books, and short stories. His first novel, Sojourn of a Stranger, was published in 1957, and his second novel, The Long, Long Love, was published in 1959. Sullivan delivered a series of lectures on modern American novelists in 1973 on WDCN, the NET channel in Nashville, and the series became an immediate hit. His subjects included Hemingway, Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and Saul Bellow. Sullivan died in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 15, 2006.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Walter Sullivan Collection
This collection is 1.21 linear feet. It contains 157 pieces of correspondence, in 27 file folders, to Walter Sullivan from the following Southern literary writers, who were part of the Fugitives/Agrarians: Donald Davidson, Andrew Lytle, Allen Tate, Peter Taylor, and Robert Penn Warren. It also includes four books, and 43 reel-to-reel tapes, in chronological order, from Literary Symposium Lectures, Panels, Readings, and Interviews with Southern writers.