Philip D. Appleman completed his B.S. in English at Northwestern University in 1950. He earned his A.M. in English at the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University in 1951 and 1955, respectively. He began his 31-year teaching career at Indiana University in 1955. He was awarded the Distinguished Professor of English award in 1982.
Appleman published eight volumes of poetry, among which is New and Selected Poems, 1956-1996 (University of Arkansas Press, 1996); three novels, including Apes and Angels (Putnam, 1989); and half a dozen nonfiction books, including the widely used Norton Critical Edition, Darwin.
His poetry and fiction have won many awards, including a fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Friend of Darwin Award from the National Center for Science Education, and the Humanist Arts Award of the American Humanist Association, and have appeared in scores of publications, including Harper's Magazine, The Nation, New Republic, New York Times, Paris Review, Partisan Review, Poetry, Sewanee Review, and Yale Review. He gave readings of his poetry at the Library of Congress, the Guggenheim Museum, the Huntington Library, and many universities, and was a member of the Poetry Society of America, the Academy of American Poets, the PEN American Center, and the Authors Guild of America. He was listed in Who's Who in America and Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Vol. 18.