Eric Larsen was born in Northfield, Minnesota, where, after going to the public schools, he graduated from Carleton College in the class of 1963. He took an M.A. in English from the University of Iowa and in 1971 completed his Ph.D. there. For his dissertation, under the direction of William Cotter Murray, he wrote a volume of original stories accompanied by his own critical commentaries.

In 1971, after living abroad for two years, Larsen joined the English Department of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in the City University of New York, and remained there until his retirement in early 2006. He is married to the editor Anne Larsen. The couple have twogrown daughters.

Books by Eric Larsen

The End of the 19th Century

by Eric Larsen

Malcolm Reiner dedicates his life to the "study of the mysteries of space and time." In his "studies" he finds a sweep of time includes the history of West Tree, Minnesota; of the "Epoch of Walking"; and of his own "years of perfect seeing," the period when, living on a farm outside West Tree, he's able, with a poetic vividness rare in fiction, to sense and see what America once was.