Louis O. Coxe papers

Louis Osborne Coxe (1918-93) was a scholar, author, poet, and playwright. Born in Manchester, NH, on April 15, 1918, Louis received his B.A. from Princeton University in 1940. He taught English at Brooks School in North Andover, MA (1940-42), but left to serve during World War II. As a lieutenant in the Navy he captained a patrol boat in the Pacific and Caribbean. In 1955 he joined Bowdoin's faculty as Pierce Professor of English. While working at Bowdoin he received two Fulbright grants, studying at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland (1959-60, and Aix Universite Marseille in Provence, France (1971-72). In 1977 he became the 36th poet to be awarded the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets. Coxe was the author of The Sea Faring(1947), The Middle Passage(1960), The Last Hero(1965), Nikal Seyn and Decoration Day(1966), Edwin Arlington Robinson: The Life of Poetry(1969), and Birth of a State(1970). He also adapted Herman Melville's novel Billy Budd into a play in 1952.

Louis Coxe married Edith Winsor in Boston on June 28, 1946. He died on May 25, 1993. Surviving, besides his wife, are three sons, Robert W. Coxe, Louis O. Jr., and Charles S. Coxe; and a daughter, Helen C. Cheney.