U.S. scholar and editor, especially noted for his work in American literature.

Perry was educated at Williams College, Williamstown, and the universities of Berlin and Strassburg (then in Germany). He taught at Williams (1886–93), Princeton University (1893–1900), and Harvard University (1907–30) and was Harvard lecturer at the University of Paris (1909–10). From 1899 to 1909 he edited The Atlantic Monthly. The French government awarded him the Legion of Honour. He edited many volumes, including the works of Edmund Burke, Sir Walter Scott, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and was general editor (1905–09) of the Cambridge edition of the major American poets. He wrote a number of books, including works on Walt Whitman, John Greenleaf Whittier, Thomas Carlyle, Emerson, and others, as well as novels, short fiction, essays, an autobiography, studies of poetry, and collections of fiction and essays.