Author

Stephen H. Grant

Biographer, Deltiologist

Son of a book publisher, Stephen H. Grant was born in Boston with New England roots from both parents. After attending Noble & Greenough School and graduating from Amherst College, he earned a master’s degree from Middlebury College in French and a doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts.

As a teenager, Grant took an avid interest in things foreign. His first experiences abroad were as summer exchange student in Germany with the American Field Service, a year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, and two years teaching as Peace Corps Volunteer in Ivory Coast, West Africa.

Familiarity living in the developing world, enjoyment in learning languages, and interest in foreign cultures and peoples led Grant to obtain a job as a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Long-term assignments in the field of education included Ivory Coast and Guinea, Egypt, Indonesia, and El Salvador.

Shifting largely from a diplomatic career to a writing life, Grant served from 2003 to 2018 as Senior Fellow at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training in Arlington, Virginia, where he lectured at the Foreign Service Institute and helped retired diplomats prepare their manuscripts for publication.

Stephen Grant’s oeuvre consists of five books, four book trailers; 45 articles, 42 blog posts and counting. The first three books are on the early postcards in Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, and El Salvador. Titles are Images de Guinée, Former Points of View: Postcards and Literary Passages from Pre-Independence Indonesia, and the bilingual Postales Salvadorenas del Ayer/Early Salvadoran Postcards. Grant is the only person on the planet to produce picture postcard books in three continents: Africa, Asia, and Central/South America.

The last two books are biographies of little-known Americans, Peter Strickland, and Henry and Emily Folger: First, Peter Strickland: New London Shipmaster, Boston Merchant, First Consul to Senegal. On March 15, 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press released “COLLECTING SHAKESPEARE: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger.” The timing was auspicious in two ways: the date is “the Ides of March” from the Roman calendar, and the following month marked the worldwide celebration of the 450th anniversary of the Bard’s birth. Notably Grant’s most recent writing combines his biographical and deltiological interests: He blogs on the postcards in the Folger Shakespeare Library archives.

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