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Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Charles R. Sleeth, Professor, Typescript Autobiography of Life in West Virginia, A&M 3693, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Biographical / Historical

Charles R. Sleeth (1915-1997) was born in Barrackville, West Virginia. He attended West Virginia University where he studied Old English and German. At the University, Sleeth served as President of Delta Phi Alpha and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In the 1930s he was accepted at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and majored in Old and Middle English. During World War II he served in the United States Army.

Charles Sleeth attended Princeton University and received his Doctorate in Oriental Languages and Literatures with a specialty in etymology. Thereafter, he got a position with the Merriam-Webster Company and spent eleven years working on a new dictionary for the Company. Dr. Charles Sleeth taught at Greensboro College, University of Oklahoma, Princeton University, and in 1962 he joined the staff at Brooklyn College's English Department as assistant professor. Twenty-four years later he retired as professor emeritus at the age of seventy.

Dr. Sleeth's published works include a book, "Studies in Christ and Satan" [an Anglo-Saxon poem of 730 lines], numerous articles [mostly on Old and Middle English topics], and a number of published reviews. Dr. Sleeth's unpublished material includes a 563-page typescript titled "A Watercourse Between Near Fences", and 19 handwritten notebooks (diaries) that he kept between 1961 and 1989.

Charles Sleeth served in the U.S. Army in World War II. He became very involved in the Fourth World Movement, founded in 1957 to combat poverty worldwide, serving as one of its U.S. Presidents.

Charles Sleeth died in 1997.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Sleeth, Charles R. (Charles Robert), 1914-
• Summersville (W. Va.)