Joseph Warren Beach (January 14, 1880 – August 13, 1957) was an American poet, novelist, critic, educator and literary scholar.
[1] Beach had been drawn to the University of Minnesota from Gloversville, by the school's president, his father-in-law, Cyrus Northrop.
Beach was the author of a number of works of poetry, literary criticism, and fiction.
He was one of the first academic scholars to work on literary figures such as Henry James (The Method of Henry James (1918)), George Meredith (The Comic Spirit in Meredith (1911)), and Thomas Hardy (The Technique of Thomas Hardy (1922)).
Beach also brought out three volumes of his own poetry – Sonnets of the Head and Heart (1903), Beginning With Plato (1944), and Involuntary Witness (1950) – as well as one novel – Glass Mountain (1930) – and a book of short stories – Meek Americans (1925).