David Cheney - Brief biographical sketch

Dr. David R. Cheney, retired professor of English, taught at the University of Toledo for 27 years (1965-1992).  Born on January 23, 1922 at Castle Dale, Utah, he was the son of Silas and Klara Cheney.  He served in the South Pacific during World War II as a company clerk and member of the Armed Service Forces Band.  He graduated from the University of Utah in 1948, and married Patricia Anne Snow the same year.  He then earned M.A. degrees from both Utah (1949) and Harvard (1951), a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa (1955), and did postdoctoral work at the University of Alberta, Canada, in 1958.

Dr. Cheney became interested in Leigh Hunt while studying at the University of Iowa, where the largest Hunt collection in the world is held.  Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was a noted English journalist, essayist, poet and critic.  In 1806 he and his brother, John Hunt, founded “The Examiner,” a London newspaper containing literary works, news and opinion. From 1819-1821, he edited and wrote for “The Indicator,” a literary publication.  Though Hunt is remembered as a poet and journalist, he is most famous for his friendships with noted writers of the time, especially  Shelley and Keats.  He was also acquainted with Dickens, Lamb and the Brownings. 

At Iowa, Cheney was asked by Dr. Warner Barnes to help edit the Hunt letters in that collection.  Soon after he started, Barnes was transferred to another university and abandoned the project.  Cheney decided to stay on and subsequently increased the scope of the project to include all of the Hunt letters still in existence.  He spent the next 15 years traveling and collecting the letters from libraries and individuals in many countries around the world, including the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Norway. 

Dr. Cheney has published numerous articles and several books, including Monsters in Medieval and Renaissance Travel Literature: a Study in Credulity and Skepticism (1949), Animals in a Midsummer Night’s Dream (1955), Musical Evenings: or, Selections, Vocal and Instrumental (1967), Leigh Hunt’s Efforts to Encourage an Appreciation of Classical Music (1968), and The Correspondence of Leigh Hunt and Charles Ollier in the Winter of 1853-54 (1976).

Dr. Cheney died of pneumonia June 18, 2006, at Foundation Park Care Center in South Toledo.

Biographical sketch courtesy of The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections at The University of Toledo.