J. A. Leo Lemay (1935–2008), Ambassador of Early American Literary Studies

Leo Lemay’s effort to institutionalize, sustain, and protect the field of early American studies is famous; his humor and his intellectual generosity, unsurpassed. When I took on the difficult task of letting those on the Society of Early Americanists’ listserve know of Leo’s death, the first message received was from William Scheick, who wrote, on October 16, 2008, “Leo’s passing is a wounding palpable absence which no words can in any way mitigate.” Bill Scheick expressed the thoughts of many people who were fortunate enough to have known Leo Lemay (fig. 1).

Of Coal Skinks, Snipe Hunts, and Early Intellectual Exuberance

Joseph Alberic Leo Lemay was born in Bristow, Virginia, on January 17, 1935, to Joseph Albert Lemay and Valencia Lee (“Mazie”) Winslow Lemay. Lemay’s youth was spent in Baltimore, where his curiosity and intellectual gifts were challenged and nurtured. Indeed, Lemay’s youth in Baltimore fostered the intellectual pursuits that would last his lifetime, from his first books related to Franklin and to Maryland to his final project, the magisterial biography of Franklin. As a young man, Lemay became friends with a cadre of buddies (as he called them) who were interested in science and natural history. Their interests were encouraged by a group of older scientists and biologists who were members of the Natural History Society of Maryland.¹ At the prompting of his mentors at the Society, Lemay read scientific papers and received lessons in natural history. The men fostered challenging investigations by Lemay and his buddies (fig. 2). One such challenge included a snipe hunt. The boys were sent out with a bag, a stick, a pail, and a somewhat vague description of what a snipe looked like and where it might be found. The snipe they were supposed to be looking for was a small beastie, not the bird known as a snipe. As Leo used to tell the tale, it was a hot and sticky day, and eventually it rained. The boys failed miserably.

Figure 1.

J. A. Leo Lemay. Photo taken sometime after 2003 (dated by the Isaacson biography publication date). Seated in his office in the English Department at the University of Delaware, Leo has staged the image by placing on top of his desk recent biographies of Franklin by James Srodes, H. W. Brands, and Walter Isaacson. The computer screen shows Leo’s online database, A Documentary History of Benjamin Franklin. Leo was probably around seventy years old at the time of this photo. Courtesy, University of Delaware

This memorable challenge is one Leo would occasionally laugh about with his graduate research assistants. “You MISerable failure!” he’d roar in one of his famous voices, laughing, on those occasions when we had failed to find him whatever small detail he needed for his research. Lemay well understood that mentioning his own failures and mishaps—just as Franklin mentions his own errata in the Autobiography—would serve as ample illustration that persistence in the face of failure or malfeasance was the surest way to achieve intellectual mastery, success, and self-respect. It was a lesson many of us, his students, were able to absorb from Lemay’s stories of his life.

When Lemay was not in the library studying natural history, he spent much of his time outdoors. His first publication occurred when he was just seventeen years old, based on a discovery and research begun three years earlier (fig. 3). His brief essay, “The Coal Skink, Eumeces Anthracinus (Baird),” discussed the fact that this little lizard had been located in Maryland, thanks to the discoveries made by the “senior author” (Leo) and his friends. With the advice of his mentors from the Natural History Society, Leo wrote up the article when he was fifteen and mailed it to the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists for publication consideration. It was published in Copeia in 1952.

Figure 2.

Lemay (right) and his natural history “buddies” in Baltimore. Courtesy, Ann Lemay

Having completed his...