SAN JOSE — A former professor of English and comparative literature, who taught for 34 years at San Jose State University, has left a $4.8 million gift to the school that makes her the most generous faculty member in the school’s history.

Martha Heasley Cox, who died in September at age 96, directed her estate’s latest donation to support SJSU’s Center for Steinbeck Studies. Previous gifts brought Cox’s total generosity to $5.5 million.

“She dedicated her career to research on one of our region’s most iconic writers, John Steinbeck,” Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Andrew Hale Feinstein said in a statement. “Through this work, she sought to inspire a new generation of writers and scholars.”

The gift, announced Tuesday, includes $3.1 million to augment the Steinbeck Fellows Endowment. Currently, the program brings about three promising writers and scholars to be in residence for a school year. This financial boost is expected to bring 10 writers to campus.

Cox also left $1 million to the Martha Heasley Cox Lecture Series, which has brought leading writers to campus, including Norman Mailer, Wallace Stegner and Toni Morrison.

And $700,000 of the bequest will go to support an online database and bibliography of audiovisuals, books and articles about Steinbeck. The data was compiled by a Cox research assistant, Greta Manville, and the program carries the names of both women.

“Martha was an incredible lady,” said Nick Taylor, director of the Steinbeck Center in downtown San Jose. “She was very much like a demanding professor, the kind who demands the best work out of students. And she even inspired her colleagues by example.”

Taylor also said Cox was famously hyperactive on campus — teaching four classes, establishing the Steinbeck Center and investing money from her textbook sales.

“Even when she was very old and frail, she still had a lot of energy,” said Taylor. “She was never scattered. She was a Renaissance woman who did a lot of good things.”

Cox arrived at SJSU from Arkansas in 1955 and quickly realized she wanted to focus attention on Steinbeck — a local literary legend. That same year Cox came to town, Steinbeck’s novel “East of Eden” was coming out as a blockbuster film starring James Dean.

Cox’s work followed along as Steinbeck wrote “Travels With Charley” in 1960 and his final novel, “The Winter of Our Discontent” in 1961. The Salinas author won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962 and the U.S. Medal of Freedom in 1964. Four years later — Dec. 20, 1968 — Steinbeck died.

According to an SJSU biography, Cox’s personal collection of Steinbeck materials “grew to become so extensive and well respected that it was incorporated into plans for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, opened in 2003. The Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies is the only university research archive in the world dedicated solely to Steinbeck’s life and work.”

It also noted that Cox was active in Steinbeck Center affairs throughout her teaching career and after her retirement.

Taylor, director of the Steinbeck Center, fondly tells the story of taking the young writers on fellowship up to San Francisco to visit Cox. She was in her late 80s, so they expected an “evening with grandma,” he said. Instead, they were overwhelmed by her book-laden apartment, her opinions and her unerring sensibilities about good writing and the value of literature.

“She was so sharp and read so much and retained everything and expressed her opinions about which writers were important and who was not, they were always blown away,” said Taylor. “Her personal favorite was Nelson Algren, the Chicago writer, but she loved Steinbeck and wanted to establish something good in his neck of the woods that did him justice from a literary perspective.”

Contact David E. Early at 408-920-5836.