Edwin Augustus Cranston (1932–2021) was a Professor of Japanese literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Harvard University.
His primary research interest was the classical literature of Japan, especially traditional poetic forms.
[1] Born on October 18, 1932,[2] Cranston was raised on a farm in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, until the age of ten, when he moved to Arizona with his parents.
[6] In 1993, Stanford University Press released the first of his proposed six-volume anthology of classical Japanese poetry.
[10] In 2009, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, by the government of Japan.