Literary critic and Raritan founder Richard Poirier died last month at age 83, reports the LA Times. Poirier was a professor at Rutgers and a founder of the Library of America. Among Poirier’s vast contributions to the American literary tradition are pieces on greats such as Norman Mailer, Robert Frost and Henry James. He also was one of the first to identify the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band as a subject of critical interest.