David Anderson (born August 4, 1952) is a former college professor. He was trained as a literary historian at Princeton University (Ph.D. 1980), where he studied with D. W. Robertson, and at universities in Italy (beginning with support from a Fulbright Fellowship, 1978), especially the scholarly circle around Giuseppe Billanvich at the Catholic University of Milan. It was as a short-term guest of this university in Milan over many years that he completed his study of the post-classical commentaries on Statius' epic poem Thebaid and their influence on Boccaccio and Chaucer, published as Before the Knight's Tale (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), and "Boccaccio's Glosses on Statius," Studi sul Boccaccio (1996). He was popular with the students of the University of Pennsylvania (1980–1988), where he was honored with the Linback Award for distinguished teaching, and where he was one of the first male members of the faculty to take a parenting leave of absence (1985), a development that earned him a front page article in the Daily Pennsylvanian under the headline "Mr. Mom". During this time he curated an exhibition and catalogue of manuscripts and early printed books illustrating Chaucer's works and their cultural influences, Sixty Books Old and New (New Chaucer Society, 1986). The exhibition, which was held jointly at the University of Pennsylvania and the Rosenbach Foundation, was supported by several Philadelphia-area charitable organizations, which made possible the distribution of copies of the catalogue to English teachers in the Philadelphia public school district. Also in this period, Anderson published Pound's Cavalcanti (Princeton University Press, 1983), which remains "invaluable" to Ezra Pound scholars.
He won the 1988-89 Rome Prize in Post-Classical Humanistic Studies. Anderson held appointments in Europe from 1989 to 1995, first as a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and then at the University of Tübingen.
In 1996 he changed careers, taking an MBA degree in accounting and finance at the University of Rochester's Simon Graduate School of Business Administration. He has worked primarily as a professional business appraiser and consultant since that time and is currently a Director in the Forensic, Litigation and Valuation Services Group at EisnerAmper LLP.
Anderson was born David Anderson, IV in Fort Benning, Georgia; at the time, his father (Major) David Anderson III (1916–2004), was serving as an instructor in the Infantry School. His mother was Carolyn Elizabeth Denfield (Anderson), (1921–1994), an elementary school teacher, a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Merrill Palmer School.
Anderson lives today in Princeton, New Jersey. He has three children, David, Maria, and Sophia.