Harold Bloom, bestselling literary critic and Yale professor, dies at 89

The scholar, who published over 20 books, sought to make his work accessible to the average reader

Best-selling literary critic and Yale professor Harold Bloom, who sought to make literature accessible to the average reader, died in hospital on Monday at 89.

His wife Jeanne told the AP her husband had carried on writing despite his declining health and even taught a class as recently as last week.

Bloom, who published over 20 books, was best known for best-selling volumes such as The Western Canon and The Book of J. His seminal work The Anxiety of Influence entered the canon of literary criticism.

He was accused in a 2004 article in New York Magazine by the writer Naomi Wolf of putting his hand on her thigh when she was his student, but he vigorously denied the allegation.

Bloom was educated at Cornell University and studied as a Fulbright Scholar in the UK at Cambridge’s Pembroke College. He then joined Yale’s English faculty after earning his doctorate degree from the university in 1955.

The youngest of five children, he was born to an Orthodox household in New York that had emigrated from Eastern Europe, and his first language was Yiddish, the New York Times reported.

Bloom is survived by his wife and their two sons.