Barrett Wendell (August 23, 1855 – February 8, 1921) was an American academic known for a series of textbooks including English Composition, studies of Cotton Mather and William Shakespeare, A Literary History of America, The France of Today, and The Traditions of European Literature.

He was the son of Jacob and Mary Bertodi (née Barrett) Wendell.

[4] The first Wendell, Evert Jansen, left the Netherlands in 1640 and settled in Albany, New York.

[6] He was a trustee of the Boston Athenaeum, a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1916.

[9] Through his daughter Mary, he was a grandfather of Reiner Garrit Anton van der Woude Jr.,[14] who married his second cousin, Lady Anne Penelope Herbert,[15] a daughter of Henry Herbert, 6th Earl of Carnarvon and the former Anne Catherine Tredick Wendell (Wendell's niece).