MATTHEWS, (JAMES) BRANDER (1852-1929), American essayist and dramatic critic, was born at New Orleans on Feb. 21, 1852, and educated at Columbia university (A.B., 1871; LL.B., 1873; A.M., 1874; LL.D., 1904). Though admitted to the bar he never practised but turned to writing and the study of literature. He was a professor at Columbia in literature, 1892-190o, and in dramatic literature, 1900-24. He wrote many short stories and critical essays which were published first in magazines and then in book form. He was for a long period a regular critic for the New York Times. His scholarship in such books as Moliere, His Life and His Works (Iwo), Shakespeare as a Playwright (1913), French Dramatists of the i9th Century (1881), is sound but there is much repetition in his lighter essays. As a constructive dramatic critic he exercised much influence on the American stage in the years 189o-1915. He was an editor of many classics and many anthologies, and joint-author of a five volume dictionary of Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States from the Days of David Garrick to the Present (1886). He died in New York City on March 31, 1929.
He is the author of more than 4o books of which the following are the more important or typical: The Theatres of Paris 0880 ; A Secret of the Sea (i886) ; Pen and Ink (i888) ; Americanisms and Briticisms (1892) ; Vignettes of Manhattan (1894) ; Studies of the Stage (1894) ; Aspects of Fiction (1896) ; Tales of Fantasy and Fact (1896) ; Development of the Drama (1903) ; American Character (1906) ; A Study of the Drama (Iwo) ; Introduction to the Study of American Literature (i9ii); Vistas of New York (1912) ; On Acting (1914) ; A Book About the Theatre (1916) ; These Many Years (1917) ; Principles of Playmaking (1919); The Tocsin of Revolt (1922) ; Rip Van Winkle Goes to the Play (1926).