The "Lives" and Writings of Edith Rickert (1871-1938)

This biography represents a nuanced account of Edith Rickert's lifeand inner life. It follows Rickert's own writing and draws attention to her life as a writer. Rickert has been long remembered as a medievalist, but she also contributed to American scholarship, pedagogy, and codicology. Born into a family of very modest means in Canal Dover, Ohio, she numbered among the University of Chicago's earliest doctoral students (1895-1899) and was among the first eight women to reach the top of that University's professorial ladder. She prepared what remains the definitive edition of the medieval romance Emaré. She documented aspects of the medieval, as well as Chaucer's life, with a historian's accuracy and a novelist's insight. In the Ladies Home Journal she wrote on women's issues that remain pressing today. With University of Chicago professor John Matthews Manly (1865-1940), she prepared numerous readers and textbooks, including several that helped putcontemporary British and American literature on the academic map. Again in collaboration with Manly, she was responsible for what has been described as perhaps the most important of the MI-8 solutions during World War I,as well as the eight-volume edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1940). Rickert also published short stories, novels, poems, and essays. As this biography shows, Rickert's achievement as a writer was equal to her work as a literary critic.

Highlights Edith Rickert's contributions in a male-dominated field Illuminates Rickert's other work including her novels and codicology Traces Rickert's influential medieval and Chaucerian scholarship

Autorentext

Christina von Nolcken is Associate Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago, USA.

Klappentext

This biography represents a nuanced account of Edith Rickert s life and inner life. It follows Rickert s own writing and draws attention to her life as a writer. Rickert has been long remembered as a medievalist, but she also contributed to American scholarship, pedagogy, and codicology. Born into a family of very modest means in Canal Dover, Ohio, she numbered among the University of Chicagös earliest doctoral students (1895-1899) and was among the first eight women to reach the top of that University's professorial ladder. She prepared what remains the definitive edition of the medieval romance Emaré. She documented aspects of the medieval, as well as Chaucer s life, with a historian s accuracy and a novelist s insight. In the Ladies Home Journal she wrote on women's issues that remain pressing today. With University of Chicago professor John Matthews Manly (1865-1940), she prepared numerous readers and textbooks, including several that helped putcontemporary British and American literature on the academic map. Again in collaboration with Manly, she was responsible for what has been described as perhaps the most important of the MI-8 solutions during World War I,as well as the eight-volume edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1940). Rickert also published short stories, novels, poems, and essays. As this biography shows, Rickert's achievement as a writer was equal to her work as a literary critic.

Inhalt

Introduction: "Foundations".- PART I: First Things, 1871-1900.- 1. With the Family.- 2. Vassar College, 1887-1891.- 3. "A New Place".- 4. "The Wide, Wide World," 1896-1897.- 5. Vassar Again, 1897-1900.- PART II: With Kate, 1900-1909.- 6. "Happy Beyond the Telling".- 7. Shetland.- 8. "In the Depths".-9. Tibbles.- 10. "It Ought to Be Enough".- 11. Into the Sunshine.- 12. Return to the States.- 13. Boston, 1909-1910.- PART III: With Manly, 1910-1938.- 14. Re-enter John Matthews Manly.- 15. Chicago, 1911-1917.- 16. Washington DC, 1917-1918.- 17. After the War, 1919-1924.- 18. Associate Professor, 1924-1930.- 19. Later Fiction.- 20. Professor.- 21. Last Things.