Katherine Canby Balderston (January 2, 1895, Boise, Idaho – November 21, 1979, South Natick, Massachusetts) was an American scholar of 18th century English literature.

She was the first female faculty member at Southern Methodist University and later a professor emerita at Wellesley College.

Her father, William Balderston, was an editor of the Boise Statesman, while her mother Stella would become the Idaho State Librarian.

[6] She established that the character of the father in The Vicar of Wakefield, which was hitherto thought to be based on Goldsmith's own, was rather an idealised parent that he wished to have had; similarly, the idealised village of Sweet Auburn, thought to have been his village in Ireland, was rather an English town that Goldsmith preferred to have grown up in.

[9] In 1942, she was made Martha Hale Shackford professor of English literature at Wellesley, which she held till retirement.