The Lewis P. Simpson Award is given annually for an outstanding work of American literary criticism. Lewis P. Simpson (1916–2005) was Boyd Professor and William A. Read Professor of English emeritus at Louisiana State University. The author of many books, Simpson was a founding member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and president of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature. He also he was instrumental in reviving The Southern Review, founded in 1935 and shuttered during World War II. Simpson served as coeditor of TSR from the much-lauded inauguration of the New Series in 1965 until his retirement in 1987.