About William Peterfield Trent

William Peterfield Trent, LL.D., D.C.L. (10 November 1862 – 7 December 1939) was an American academic and the author/editor of many books. He was a professor of English literature at Sewanee: The University of the South and Columbia University. While at Sewanee, he founded the Sewanee Review in 1892, a literary journal that continues to operate.

Trent was born in Richmond, Virginia. His grandfather, Joseph Trent, had an M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. His father, Peterfield Trent, also became a doctor and served as a surgeon for the Confederate States Army during the war. His mother, née Lucy Carter Burwell, came from a long line of Virginians.