William Malone Baskervill

William Malone Baskervill (1850–1899) was a writer and professor of the English language and literature at Vanderbilt University.

Early life
William Malone Baskerville was born in 1850 in Fayette County, Tennessee. He graduated from Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. One of his teacher, Thomas Randoph Price, encouraged him to study in Germany. As a result, he attended the University of Leipzig in 1873–1874, where he became friends with Charles Forster Smith.

Career
From 1876 to 1881, Baskervill taught at Wofford College alongside Smith and James H. Kirkland. In 1878-79 he returned to study in Leipzig, and in the summer of 1880, returned to Leipzig to finish his doctorate. Beginning in 1881, Baskervill taught at Vanderbilt University. Together with Smith, who also taught at Vanderbilt, and George Washington Cable, he ran an organization known as the Open Letter Club. Essie Samuels notes this was "a loosely organized attempt to disseminate liberal propaganda concerning civil rights and education for the Negro in the South between 1887 and 1890."

Personal life
He was the son-in-law of Methodist Bishop and Vanderbilt University co-founder Holland Nimmons McTyeire.

Death
He died in 1899.