Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905–November 5, 1975) was a leading American literary critic and influential professor at Columbia University, recognized as a prominent liberal intellectual of the mid-20th century, particularly within anti-Stalinist circles. Born in Queens, New York City, to Jewish immigrant parents—his father, David Trilling, a tailor from Białystok, Poland, and his mother, Fannie (née Cohen), from London, England—he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1921 and entered Columbia University at age 16, earning a B.A. from Columbia College in 1925, an M.A. in 1926 (with a thesis on Theodore Edward Hook), and a Ph.D. in 1938 (dissertation on Matthew Arnold, later published to acclaim). After brief teaching stints at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Hunter College, he joined Columbia's English Department faculty in 1931, becoming its first tenured Jewish professor in 1939 after overcoming antisemitic resistance from colleagues via presidential appointment. Trilling married fellow critic and writer Diana Rubin in 1929; they had a son, James Trilling, and were prominent in the New York Intellectuals circle, contributing to Partisan Review (advisory board from 1937). His seminal works include the novel 'The Middle of the Journey' (1947), exploring liberal moral and political shifts amid 1930s-1940s anti-Stalinism, and the essay collection 'The Liberal Imagination' (1950). A second novel, 'The Journey Abandoned,' was published posthumously in 2008. He remained at Columbia until his death in New York City, shaping mid-20th-century literary and cultural criticism through psychological, sociological, and philosophical lenses.