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Ronald S. Crane was born January 5, 1886 in Tecumseh, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1908, and received a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1911. That same year he began teaching English at Northwestern University, where he stayed until hired by the University of Chicago in 1924.
Crane was eventually named head of the University of Chicago's English Department and, from 1930 to 1952, also acted as managing editor for the University's publication, Modern Philology . His essay titled History Versus Criticism in the Study of Literature is considered the first publication of the Chicago School of Critics, a school of literary criticism that rejected what they believed to be the overly subjective New Criticism school, instead aiming for objectivity and an evidential foundation in the classics.
Crane also held positions in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was a member of the London Bibliographical Society. He died on July 12, 1967, in Chicago, Illinois.
The three speeches that comprise the entirety of this collection are part of Dr. Ronald Salmon Crane's work, Literature and the History of Ideas , which is made up of three parts: The Elements of the Problem , The Philosophic Emphasis , and The Literary Emphasis The speeches were given over the course of three days, May 4, 11, and 13, in 1954.