Christopher Benfey (born October 28, 1954) is an American literary critic and Emily Dickinson scholar.
Benfey was born in Merion, Pennsylvania,[citation needed] but spent most of his childhood in Richmond, Indiana.
[1] He began his undergraduate studies at Earlham College,[2] where his father, Otto Theodor Benfey, was a professor in the Chemistry department,[1] and completed his B.A.
He is also an established essayist and critic who has been published in The Atlantic,[3] The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and The Times Literary Supplement.
[4] He is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College, where he has taught since 1989.