September 2, 1933

Professor of Philosophy Woodbridge Riley died at his summer home in Cape May, NJ, at the age of 64. Riley, who taught at Vassar since 1908, was a prolific scholar and a provocative and exacting teacher, known for his acerb wit. In 1922 he gained front page notice in The New York Times when Christian Science and Mormon leaders forced the publisher to withdraw the fourth volume of The Cambridge History of American Literature, where Riley’s analyses of their respective religions in a chapter, “Popular Bibles” called Christian Science “inconsistent and illogical” and referred to its founder, Mary Baker Eddy, as a “thrice-married Trismegistus.”