Paul Geoffrey Edwards (31 July 1926 – 10 May 1992) was a wide-ranging literary scholar at the University of Edinburgh, appreciated for his "adventurous and unorthodox teaching".[1]
Edwards joined the staff of Edinburgh University in 1963.[6] Encouraged by Chinua Achebe, and helped by the historian of Sierra LeoneChristopher Fyfe, in 1967 Edwards published an abridged edition of Equiano's autobiographical Narrative in Heinemann's African Writers Series, under the title Equiano's Travels. He subsequently published a facsimile version of the Narrative, and another edited version under the title The Life of Olaudah Equiano.[2]
At the University of Edinburgh Edwards introduced a final year Honours option on "Caribbean and West African Literature", which he taught with Kenneth Ramchand.[3] He became Reader in English Literature,[7] and was subsequently awarded a personal chair as professor of English and African Literature at Edinburgh.[5]
He died 10 May 1992.[6] In March 1994 a conference entitled "Africans and Caribbeans in Britain: Writing, History, and Society" was held in his memory at Edinburgh's Centre of African Studies.[8] A collection of essays in his memory appeared in 1998.[9]
Works
(ed.) West African Narrative: an anthology for schools, 1963.
(ed.) Modern African Narrative: an anthology, 1966.
(ed.) Equiano's Travels: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African by Olaudah Equiano. London: Heinemann, 1967. African Writers Series 10.
(ed.) A Ballad Book for Africa, London: Faber, 1968.
(tr. with Hermann Pálsson) Gautrek's Saga, and other medieval tales, London: University of London Press, 1968.
(tr. with Hermann Pálsson) Orkneyinga Saga: the history of the Earls of Orkney, London: Hogarth Press, 1978.
(tr. with Hermann Pálsson) Göngu-Hrólfs Saga, Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1980.
Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade, 1983.
(with David Dabydeen) "Black writers of the 18th and 19th centuries", in David Dabydeen (ed.), The Black Presence in English Literature, 1985, pp. 50–67.
