Biography
Author of Wilbur's Poetry; Mark Twain on the Loose; Literary Wit; and Printer's Devil: Mark Twain and the American Publishing Revolution; translator of Georges Clemenceau, Claude Monet: The Water Lilies and Other Writings on Art; former President of the Mark Twain Circle of America; former President of the American Humor Studies Association; author of articles on Richard Wilbur, Mark Twain, Robert Lowell, Edith Wharton, Garison Keillor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and other literary subjects. 2-time Fulbright Professor(universities of Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and Liège; Fulbright Ambassador; on-screen commentator for the American Passages video series. Director of the University of Illinois Campus Honors Program 1995-2013.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor Emeritus, English
Recent Publications
Michelson, B. (2022). Roughing It as Restless Art. Mark Twain Annual, 20, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.5325/marktwaij.20.1.0001
Caron, J. E., & Michelson, B. (2021). A querulous query: What to make of something called the “autobiography of Mark Twain”/Bruce Michelson replies. Mark Twain Annual, 19, 1-4. https://doi.org/10.5325/marktwaij.19.1.0001
Michelson, B., Shouse, E., Kunze, P. C., Krefting, B., & Dickson-Carr, D. (2020). On Second Thought. Studies in American Humor, 6(2), 245-253. https://doi.org/10.5325/STUDAMERHUMOR.6.2.0245
Michelson, B. (2020). Reckoning with the autobiography. Mark Twain Annual, 18(1), 90-110. https://doi.org/10.5325/MARKTWAIJ.18.1.0090
Michelson, B. (2020). Review: A. Gribben's Mark Twain's Literary Resources: A Reconstruction of His Library and Reading, Volume One. Mark Twain Annual, 18(1), 173-176. https://doi.org/10.5325/marktwaij.18.1.0173