Dr. Gordon Norton Ray was a literary scholar and author who presided over the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation until September 1985. For many years, Dr. Ray served as a distinguished teacher of English, particularly Victorian, literature. He was widely known for his authoritative biographical studies of Thackeray, starting with a doctoral thesis at Harvard University, and of H. G. Wells.

Dr. Ray died of a heart attack in his home in Manhattan on December 15, 1986.