Thorslev was born on October 17, 1929, in
Harlan, Iowa. Later moving to Kennard, he obtained his BA from
Dana College in 1950. After spending one year at
Northwestern University as an English instructor (1959-1960), he moved to the
University of California, Los Angeles as assistant professor of English. In 1965, he was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship "for a study of free will and determinism in the Romantic period". Another book in the field,
Romantic Contraries, was published in 1984. He chaired the UCLA senate's academic freedom committee. In 1988, he voiced concern about the state of the International Gay and Lesbian Archives (now part of the
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives) after they lost their original storage space due to financial issues. Thorslev died on October 13, 2011, at
Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in
Burbank, California. He was cremated and interred at
St. James' Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, while a funeral took place on October 20 at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in
North Hollywood. ==Bibliography==