Meet The Author

Barbara Fass Leavy

Barbara Fass Leavy was a Professor of English Literature at Queens College of the City University of New York and an Adjunct Professor of English in Psychiatry at the Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University. She has published numerous essays and given lectures on literature, folklore, crime fiction, gender relations, and Greek tragedy and psychology. Three of her four books are on folk and fairy tales and their literary versions; a fourth treats literature whose subject is epidemic diseases. When asked by her six young granddaughters what she wrote about, she used to reply, “mermaids,” and now that they are able to do research online, they have tested this answer by putting her name and the word “mermaid” into Google, surprised by the number of entries. Barbara Leavy has published a book on the fiction of Ruth Rendell.