RICHARD LOCKE

LOCKE--Richard. Richard Locke, 81, noted literary critic, essayist, and professor emeritus of literature and writing at Columbia University School of the Arts died on Friday, August 25, 2023 in New York, surrounded by his family. Son of the late Norman S. Locke and the late Esther S. Locke, he grew up in New York and was educated at The Lawrenceville School; Columbia University; Clare College, Cambridge; and Harvard University. He began his career as an editor at Simon & Schuster in 1965, leaving publishing to join The New York Times from 1969-1981, where he served as Deputy Editor of the Book Review after 1974. Locke left the Times at the invitation of Si Newhouse to become the first editor-in-chief of the revived Vanity Fair. He also served as the president of the National Book Critics Circle from 1982-1984. Locke worked on Vanity Fair from 1981 until 1983, and left Conde Nast to spend the greater part of his career as a professor at Columbia University, where he first joined the faculty in 1984. At Columbia, Locke taught literature and writing for thirty-eight years. As Professor of Professional Practice in the Graduate School of the Arts, he served as Chair of the Writing Division from 1995-2000, retiring as Professor Emeritus in 2022. His dedication to and love of teaching was recognized with the Columbia University Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2011. Locke was the author of Critical Children: The Use of Children in Ten Great Novels (Columbia University Press, 2011), as well as more than 180 essays and reviews that appeared in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The American Scholar, The Threepenny Review, Bookforum, Salmagundi, The Yale Review, The Atlantic, and The New Republic among others. He was an ardent pianist, a consummate traveler, and a lover of art, admired by all who knew him for his intelligence, wit, kindness, and integrity. He is survived by his wife and partner of 47 years, Wendy Webber Nicholson; his daughters, Sarah Johansson Locke and Dr. Rebecca Johansson Locke, her husband Eric Sillman and their children Toby and Lena Sillman; his stepson, Nicholas Nicholson and his husband David Mowers; as well as generations of friends, colleagues, students, and writers.