Irwin Primer

Irwin Primer passed away peacefully on December 1, 2020, age 91, at home in Maplewood, New Jersey. He was a rare breed – patient, loving, infinitely curious. From humble beginnings in Brownsville, Brooklyn, he became president of his class at Thomas Jefferson High School, graduated from Brooklyn College in 1949, and earned a Ph.D. in English at Yale in 1961.

He was a professor of English at Rutgers University–Newark for 40 years. He met Blossom, his wife of 60 years, when she began teaching there in 1959, and they were among a group of professors who built up Rutgers-Newark and encouraged the construction of a new and expanded campus. Irwin was part of a loose-knit team that helped staff and students get through the tumultuous Newark riots of 1967 as well as the student takeover of Conklin Hall in 1969. He served as English department chair for seven years in the 1970s.

Irwin's research was chiefly in eighteenth-century studies, specializing in philosophy and the history of ideas. He authored and edited numerous scholarly texts, corresponding with and encouraging other scholars and students around the globe. He was an internet "early adopter" in the days before the web. He also taught popular elective courses, including satire and utopian literature.

Irwin's primary scholarly contributions were as an editor and interpreter of the works of Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733). He was a master of Mandeville's uses of satire and paradox. Along with his historical textual work, Irwin detailed the complex interrelationships between Mandeville's writings and others, notably predecessors Shaftesbury, Bayle and La Rochefoucauld. He also edited seventeenth- and eighteenth-century translations of La Rochefoucauld's maxims into English, tracing their dissemination into the English-speaking world.

While in high school or college, Irwin boldly took a course in calligraphy at The Cooper Union in Manhattan and went on to become a noteworthy calligrapher who did commissioned work for his university and for other organizations.

Irwin was beloved for his wit, care, kindness, and his encouraging friendship. He is survived by Blossom, his brother Milton (Nina), two sons Jeremy (Sandra) and Joel (Susan), and two grandchildren.