Edwin Mims

Edwin Mims (1872–1959) was an American university professor of English literature. He served as the chair of the English Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, for thirty years from 1912 to 1942, and he taught many members of the Fugitives and the Southern Agrarians, two literary movements in the South. He was a staunch opponent of lynching and a practicing Methodist.

Early life Edwin Mims was born in 1872 in Richmond, Arkansas, near Texarkana. His father was Andrew Jackson Mims and his mother, Cornelia Williamson. He was also the editor of The Vanderbilt Hustler, the main campus newspaper. One of his requirements was to ask his students to learn a thousand verses of poetry by heart. He wrote a history of Vanderbilt University as well as of Chancellor Kirkland. Stuart's Beyond Dark Hills, was the direct result of one of Mims's assignments (writing an autobiographical essay); it was published in 1938. However, Allen Tate tried to expose his hypocrisy as Mims assured Ransom he would be welcome to stay in his department at Vanderbilt.

Mims died on September 15, 1959, in Nashville. The Edwin Mims Professorship at Vanderbilt University is named in his honor. Chancellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1939). History of Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1946). The Christ of the poets (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1948). A Biography of Sidney Lanier Great Writers As Interpreters of Religion