born Feb. 16, 1886, Plainfield, N.J., U.S.
died May 2, 1963, Bridgewater, Conn.
U.S. critic, biographer, and literary historian.
Brooks attended Harvard University. His Finders and Makers series, tracing American literary history in rich biographical detail from 1800 to 1915, includes The Flowering of New England, 18151865 (1936, Pulitzer Prize); New England: Indian Summer, 18651915 (1940); The World of Washington Irving (1944); The Times of Melville and Whitman (1947); and The Confident Years: 18851915 (1952).