Paul Edwards (literary scholar)

Paul Geoffrey Edwards was a wide-ranging literary scholar at the University of Edinburgh, appreciated for his "adventurous and unorthodox teaching".
As a scholar of black history and literature, Edwards's work on Olaudah Equiano "helped to establish Equiano as a key figure in African and black literature in general." Edwards also wrote on Romanticism, and collaborated with Hermann Pálsson in translations of the Icelandic sagas and other books on the literature of medieval Iceland.

Life

Paul Edwards, from Birmingham, studied English at Durham University and then Celtic and Icelandic at Cambridge University. He was the Editor of Palatinate during his time at Durham, working alongside Harold Evans. After completing his education he worked in West Africa for nine years, teaching literature in Ghana and Sierra Leone. The demand of his African students for African literature propelled his encounter with Equiano.
Edwards joined the staff of Edinburgh University in 1963. Encouraged by Chinua Achebe, and helped by the historian of Sierra Leone Christopher Fyfe, in 1967 Edwards published an abridged edition of Equiano's autobiographical [The Interesting The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano|Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano|Narrative] in Heinemann's African Writers Series, under the title Equiano's Travels. He subsequently published a facsimile version of the Narrative, and another edited version under the title The Life of Olaudah Equiano.
At the University of Edinburgh Edwards introduced a final year Honours option on "Caribbean and West African Literature", which he taught with Kenneth Ramchand. He became Reader in English Literature, and was subsequently awarded a personal chair as professor of English and African Literature at Edinburgh.
He died on 10 May 1992. In March 1994, a conference entitled "Africans and Caribbeans in Britain: Writing, History, and Society" was held in his memory at Edinburgh's Centre of African Studies. A collection of essays in his memory appeared in 1998.

Works

West African Narrative: an anthology for schools, 1963.Modern African Narrative: an anthology, 1966.Through African Eyes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966Equiano's Travels: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African by Olaudah Equiano. London: Heinemann, 1967. African Writers Series 10.A Ballad Book for Africa, London: Faber, 1968.Gautrek's Saga, and other medieval tales, London: University of London Press, 1968.

"Introduction" to The Year in San Fernando, Michael Anthony, London: Heinemann Caribbean Writers Series, 1970Arrow-Odd: a medieval novel, New York: New York University Press, 1970Legendary Fiction in Medieval Iceland, Reykjavík: University of Iceland, 1970
"Introduction" to The Mystic Masseur, VS Naipaul, London: Heinemann Caribbean Writers Series, 1971Hrolf Gautreksson, a Viking romance, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972The Book of Settlements; Landnámabók. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 1972Eyrbyggja Saga, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973.Egil's Saga by Snorri Sturluson. Harmondworth: Penguin Books, 1976.Orkneyinga Saga: the history of the Earls of Orkney, London: Hogarth Press, 1978.Göngu-Hrólfs Saga, Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1980.Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade, 1983.
"Black writers of the 18th and 19th centuries", in David Dabydeen, The Black Presence in English Literature, 1985, pp. 50–67.
"Three West African Writers of the 1780s", in Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates Jr., eds, The Slave's Narrative, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.Seven Viking Romances, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.Knytlinga Saga: the history of the kings of Denmark, Odense: Odense University Press, 1986.Magnus' Saga: the life of St Magnus, Earl of Orkney, 1075–1116, Oxford: Perpetua, 1987.Vikings in Russia: Yngvar's saga and Eymund's saga, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989.Black Writers in Britain: 1760–1830, 1991.The letters of Ignatius Sancho by Ignatius Sancho, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1994.