https://www.humanities.uci.edu/news/memoriam-remembering-hazard-s-adams-1926-2023
(with old photo)

The founding faculty member of UCI’s (University of California, Irvine) Department of English and Comparative Literature, Emeritus Professor Hazard S. Adams, passed away on February 24th. He was 97 years old.

Professor Adams was involved in developing many of the transformative academic programs that continue to make UCI humanities distinctive. In addition to developing M.A. and Ph.D. programs in English and comparative literature, Adams developed the first M.F.A. program in creative writing in the University of California system. Alongside Murray Krieger, Adams founded the School of Criticism and Theory at UCI, now located at Cornell.

Adams was a prolific scholar, writing or editing more than 30 books. Perhaps best known for his work on William Blake, he published on William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, and Joyce Cary. His anthology Critical Theory Since Plato (1971) was one of the first anthologies of its kind. It has influenced several generations of students.

Professor Adams was also known for his extraordinary service to the campus, having served as Dean of Humanities from 1970-72, and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs from 1972-74. In his role as department chair in the early days on campus, he served on virtually every committee on campus, including physical planning. He also developed the Humanities Core Course, which was the first large interdisciplinary humanities offering for undergraduates and is still going strong today. Recognizing his many contributions to the campus, he was awarded the “Extraordinarius” award by the UCI Alumni Association.

Through his scholarship, generous service, and formative influence on the School of Humanities, Adams leaves a lasting mark at UCI and beyond.

https://ohiocenterforthebook.org/2020/12/08/adams-hazard/

Excerpt:

In a Library Journal interview Adams, reflecting on his writing career said, “My own interest in writing dates back a long way—to early childhood, when my father was writing poetry, and to third grade, when I had a teacher who encouraged all of us to write, and even published us. Poetry, I thought, was my game—after baseball, that is! But then there was a hiatus until one year at Princeton when I ruined my grade average writing in great secrecy a novel, of which, I am glad to say, not a scrap remains. After that, I turned to criticism and a scholarly career, but with an interest mainly in poetry, and particularly that of William Blake.”

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CAJMBU_enUS1063&q=books+hazard+adams&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiEzOTG6NT_AhXEElkFHUMEBGMQ0pQJegQIChAB&biw=911&bih=433&dpr=1.5
(book covers)

About "The Truth about Dragons: An Anti-Romance" (1971 - reprinted in 2011 - check out the Kirkus review as well):

Amazon:
"What's a dragon doing in the hills above Santa Barbara in the 1970's? In the prime of life at 606 years old, Firedrake is keeping the dragon faith, even as the modern world encroaches upon his lair. He's following dragon traditions of many millennia: gathering and guarding a treasure trove, having a troublesome relationship with a very pretty young woman, and of course encountering a dragon slayer or two. Firedrake's a traditionalist, sure, but not a hidebound one. When he happens on a working cassette tape recorder he's delighted, as he loves telling a tale, almost as much as he loves collecting everything from magical balms to old bottles. Thanks to modern technology (well, modern by dragon standards) a dragon has finally gotten the chance to tell the world the dragon side of things. So forget the myths and lies propounded by misguided humans You have in your hands a transcript of actual dragon diaries, full of wonderful dragon lore, that puts you front row center to a modern dragon saga, complete with heroes and damsels, treachery and honor, and of course, a little bit of enchantment. The real story only a dragon could tell...."

Google Books:
"Firedrake, a dragon, discusses the foibles of humankind, especially in connection with the great California earthquake of spring, 1971."

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/search/books/?q=hazard%20adams&sf=t
(five Kirkus reviews)

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/17179.Hazard_Adams
(reader reviews)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Muq624viunM
(short slideshow advertisement for "The Day The Dogs Talked": "A leash law in Hilltown, where dogs have always run free? The town council is ready to act — that is, until the dogs decide the time has come to speak out in protest. Author Hazard Adams has written a modern fable about what happens when our best friends finally speak their minds.")

From "Contemporary Authors":

CAREER
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, instructor, 1952-56; University of Texas, Austin, assistant professor of English, 1956-59; Michigan State University, East Lansing, associate professor, 1959-62, professor, 1962- 64; University of California, Irvine, professor and chairman of department of English, 1964-69, dean of School of Humanities, 1970-72, vice-chancellor of academic affairs, 1972-74, professor, 1990-94; University of Washington, Seattle, professor of English, 1974-90 and 1994-95, professor emeritus, 1995--. Washington University, St. Louis, visiting professor, 1959; Trinity College, Dublin, Fulbright research scholar and lecturer, 1962-63.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Poems by Robert Simeon Adams, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1952.
Blake and Yeats: The Contrary Vision, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1955.

The Contexts of Poetry, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1963.
William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems, University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 1963.
(Editor) Poetry: An Introductory Anthology, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1968.
The Horses of Instruction (novel), Harcourt (New York, NY), 1968.
(With Carl Hartman) Fiction as Process, Dodd (New York, NY), 1968.
The Interests of Criticism: An Introduction to Literary Theory, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1969.

(Editor and author of notes and commentary) William Blake, Jerusalem: Selected Poems and Prose, Holt (New York, NY), 1970.
The Truth about Dragons: An Anti-Romance (novel), Harcourt (New York, NY), 1971.
(Editor) Critical Theory since Plato, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1971, revised edition, 1992.
Lady Gregory, Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg, PA), 1973.
The Academic Tribes, Liveright (New York, NY), 1976, 2nd edition, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1988.

Joyce Cary's Trilogies: Pursuit of the Particular Real, University Presses of Florida (Tallahassee, FL), 1983.
Philosophy of the Literary Symbolic, University Press of Florida (Tallahassee, FL), 1983.
(Editor, with Leroy Searle) Critical Theory since 1965, Florida State University Press (Tallahassee, FL), 1986.

(Editor) Antithetical Essays in Literary Criticism and Liberal Education, Florida State University Press (Tallahassee, FL), 1990.
Critical Essays on William Blake, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1991.
The Book of Yeats' Vision: Romantic Modernism and Antithetical Tradition, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1995.
The Farm at Richwood and Other Poems, Cast Peak Editions (Murphy, OR), 1997..
Many Pretty Toys (novel), State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 1999.

Home (novel), State University of New York Press (Albany, NY), 2001.
The Offense of Poetry, 2007; Academic Child: A Memoir, 2008;
Blake's Margins: An Interpretive Study of the Annotations, 2009;

William Blake on His Poetry and Painting: A Study of a Descriptive Catalogue, Other Prose Writings and Jerusalem, 2011;
The Day the Dogs Talked, 2012;
Thinking Through Blake: Essays in Literary Contrariety, 2014.