Eleanor Widmer

Eleanor Widmer , who grew up on New York's Lower East Side, had a varied career as a scholar, critic, teacher, and a food and restaurant critic in the San Diego region where she made her home. She earned a master's degree at Columbia University and a doctorate in English literature at the University of Washington in 1956. A passionate defender of freedom of expression, she was an expert witness in an obscenity trial involving banning the sale of Henry Miller's novel, Tropic of Cancer . She...See more

Eleanor Widmer , who grew up on New York's Lower East Side, had a varied career as a scholar, critic, teacher, and a food and restaurant critic in the San Diego region where she made her home. She earned a master's degree at Columbia University and a doctorate in English literature at the University of Washington in 1956. A passionate defender of freedom of expression, she was an expert witness in an obscenity trial involving banning the sale of Henry Miller's novel, Tropic of Cancer . She died in California in 2004 at the age of eighty. See less