Ivor Armstrong Richards (1893-1979) was an influential literary critic and rhetorician. His books, especially The Meaning of Meaning, Principles of Literary Criticism, Practical Criticism, and The Philosophy of Rhetoric, were among the founding documents of the New Criticism, and most of the eminent New Critics were Richards's students. Since the New Criticism, at least in English-speaking countries, is often thought of as the beginning of modern literary criticism, it is at most a slight exaggeration to call Richards the founder of the contemporary study of literature in English.
