Van Doren, Carl Clinton (1885–1950)

US critic and biographer. He wrote lives of Thomas Love Peacock 1911, James Branch Cabell 1925, Dean Swift 1930, Sinclair Lewis 1933, and Benjamin Franklin 1938 (Pulitzer Prize). Critical works include The American Novel 1921 and, with his brother Mark Van Doren, American and British Literature Since 1890 1925.

He was born in Hope, Illinois, and studied at the University of Illinois and at Columbia, where he taught English 1911–30. He was general editor of the Cambridge History of American Literature 1917–21.