Wayne C. Booth

In The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (1992), Booth returns to the topic of rhetorical effects in fiction, and "argues for the relocation of ethics to the center of our engagement with literature" (cover note, The Company we Keep). It is a widely-cited contribution to the field of literature and ethics or ethical criticism, building on his arguments in Critical Understanding (1979).

The University of Chicago Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching was established in 1991 in honor of Booth. The award is given out annually.

In the 1983 edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction, which included a lengthy addendum to the original 1961 edition, Booth outlined various identities taken on by both authors and readers: The Flesh-and Blood Author, the Implied Author, the Teller of This Tale, the Career Author, and the "Public Myth"; and, the Flesh-and-Blood Re-Creator of Many Stories, the Postulated Reader, the Credulous Listener, the Career Reader, and the Public Myth about the "Reading Public."

Another book of note is 1974's A Rhetoric of Irony, in which Booth examines the long tradition of irony and its use in literature. It is probably his second most popular work after The Rhetoric of Fiction.

Booth was born in Utah of Mormon parents, Wayne Chipman Booth and Lillian Clayson Booth. The older Booth died in 1927, when young Wayne was six years old. Booth graduated from American Fork High School in 1938. He was educated at Brigham Young University and the University of Chicago. He taught English at Haverford College and Earlham College before moving back to the University of Chicago. He maintained his membership in the LDS Church throughout his life, but took the position that many religions were equally acceptable and sufficient. He was a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Wayne Clayson Booth (February 22, 1921, in American Fork, Utah – October 10, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois) was an American literary critic. He was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Language & Literature and the College at the University of Chicago. His work followed largely from the Chicago school of literary criticism.