His work is marked by sound scholarship and literary acumen. It is as a student of Chaucer, of Shakespeare, and of the English language from the point of view of its development that he especially distinguished himself. His editorial work includes: Chaucer's Parliament of Foules (1877); the Complete Works of Charles Dudley Warner (1904); and the Yale Book of American Verse (1912). Professor Lounsbury wrote other important publications which include:
Lounsbury was also the subject of some needling by Mark Twain, in his famous critique of James Fenimore Cooper ("Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", written 1895). Lounsbury had written favorably of Cooper, which Twain took to mean that Lounsbury simply hadn't actually read Cooper.
References
^"Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury". Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University: 749–752. 1915.