Lawrence Buell (academic)

"[9] Said Buell, "To be recognized publicly for what one considers inherently most important in one's professional life is by no means to be taken for granted, and I am very grateful...Never during my eight years at Harvard have I taught an undergraduate course that I didn't enjoy teaching.

The papers include a collection of fan letters, comic books, scrapbooks of high points in Lulu’s history, and a complete set of the newspaper cartoons.

The then-President of Harvard University and then-Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Drew Gilpin Faust suggested the donation after discovering that “Marge” was Buell’s mother.

His mother was clearly a pathbreaker, both in her creativity in designing the cartoon, the artistry involved, and the proto-feminism in this tough little girl.”[10] Buell's brother Fred is a published poet and literary critic, and is a professor at Queens College, New York.

According to the jury, Buell was selected "for a book worthy of both the great philosopher he chose as his topic and of the Brooks and Warren tradition of excellence in literary criticism."

The jury added: "In an elegant, clear-speaking style, notably free of pretentious academic jargon, Dr. Buell cogently assesses Emerson's radically original contributions to fields of thought as disparate as science, politics, religion, philosophy, literature and social action.

"I also confess to being somewhat bemused and surprised," he added, "that a book about a New England icon toward whom both Mr. Warren and Mr. Brooks felt distinctly ambivalent would be honored in their name, especially considering that only one of its seven chapters is exclusively devoted to Emerson's accomplishment as a creative writer.