Edwin Noel Perrin (September 18, 1927 – November 21, 2004) was an American essayist and a professor at Dartmouth College, known for writing about rural life.
Early years
Perrin was born on September 18, 1927, in Manhattan and grew up in Pelham Manor, New York. His parents both worked as advertising copywriters at the J. Walter Thompson Agency. His mother Blanche was a career writer and the author of several novels, and she was his inspiration to become a writer.
Perrin was educated at the Woodberry Forest School in Orange, Virginia, and later at Williams College where he majored in English Literature and graduated in 1949. He received a master's degree from Duke University in 1950, then served in the Army. During the Korean War, he served as a forward observer in a field artillery unit and was awarded the Bronze Star.
Teaching and writing career
Perrin taught English literature at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina from 1956 to 1959. He further studied at Cambridge University, where he received a Master's of Literature degree in 1958. He joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1959 as an instructor in English, reaching the rank of full professor by 1970. He specialized in teaching modern poetry, particularly that of Robert Frost. He was a Fulbright professor at Warsaw University in Poland in 1970, and was twice a Guggenheim Fellow. He joined Dartmouth's Environmental Studies Program in 1984 as an adjunct professor, teaching courses on a range of subjects.
