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Melvin J. Tucker, Associate Professor Emeritus
email: mjtucker@acsu.buffalo.edu

Education: PhD, Northwestern, 1962

Field(s): Early Modern Europe

Hub(s): Culture & Society

Research Interests: Tudor/Stuart England, Childhood

Research: I am working on reconstructing the life of John Skelton, 1463-1529, Henry VIII’s childhood tutor and the creator of the verse form known as the Skeltonic. In as much as Skelton’s most autobiographical poem, The Garland of Laurel, has been redated through my work and that of Prof. Owen Gingerich, Research Professor of Astronomy and History of Science at Harvard University and Senior Astronomer at the Smithsonian Astophysical Observatory at Cambridge. I plan to explore in greater detail Skelton’s affinities with the Howard family and look into his relationship with Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII’s mother. I will also attempt to determine the truth found in the Merry Tales that Cardinal Wolsey threw Skelton into Westminster jail.

Selected Publications:
The Life of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and Second Duke of Norfolk, 1433-1524. The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1964.

With Sanders G. Laurie, Centering: A Guide to Inner Growth: Warner Destiny: N.Y. 1978; 2nd ed. Destiny Books: Rochester, Vt., 1993. Also Brazilian, English, and Italian editions.

"The Child as Beginning and End: 15th and 16th Century English Childhood," in The History of Childhood, ed. Lloyd de Mause. NY: PsychoHistory Press, 1974. Also Harper Torchbook, English, German, Spanish editions. Reprint 1988 Peter Bedrick Books.

"Joel Hurstfield: Historian for All Seasons" in Walter Arnstein, ed., Recent Historians of Great Britain: Essays on the Post-1945 Generation (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1990), 37-56.

"Historians and Using Tomorrow’s Research Libraries: Research Teaching and Training," History Teacher 17 (May 1984), 385-444.

Last updated: Tuesday, December 12, 2006