Edwin Percy Whipple (8 March 1819-16 June 1886), essayist and critic, was born at Gloucester, Massachusetts. He chose banking as a career, but regularly contributed critical essays to newspapers and magazines, and became an accomplished debater. An essay on Thomas Macaulay in 1843, published in the North American Review, won him wide recognition, and his Essays and Reviews, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1848-1849), firmly established him. He received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1848. Still, Whipple worked in the newsroom of the Merchants' Exchange until 1860, when he devoted all his time to writing and lecturing. Whipple's essays, especially those published in Recollections of Eminent Men (Boston: Ticknor, 1887) and American Literature and Other Papers (Boston: Ticknor, 1887), are more interpretative than critical, "distributing to the general public the produce of other minds." He died in Boston.