William Robert Irwin was born September 17, 1915, in Shenandoah, Iowa. He received his B.A. degree in English from Grinnell College in 1936. He took his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University in 1937 and 1941. He taught English at Long Island University in Brooklyn and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, from 1938 until 1947. Dr. Irwin joined the English faculty at the State University of Iowa as assistant professor in 1947, and was made full professor in 1962. Irwin's area of research was 18th Century English literature. Dr. Irwin retired in 1986. Irwin married Patricia Beesley in 1939 and they had a son, William Andrew, in 1944. Following a divorce from Patricia that was granted in 1953 he married Constance H. Frick of Evansville, Indiana, in 1954. The papers of Constance Irwin reside in the University of Iowa Women's Archives. William R. Irwin died October 24, 1996.