Helen Waddell

24 featured booksHelen Waddell

Born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister and missionary who was lecturing in the Imperial University. She spent the first eleven years of her life in Japan before her family returned to Belfast. Waddell was educated at Victoria College for Girls and Queen's University Belfast, where she studied under Professor Gregory Smith, graduating in 1911. She followed her BA with first class honours in English with a master's degree, and in 1919 enrolled in Somerville College, Oxford, to study for her doctorate. A travelling scholarship from Lady Margaret Hall in 1923 allowed her to conduct research in Paris. She is best known for bringing to light the history of the medieval goliards in her 1927 book The Wandering Scholars, and translating their Latin poetry in the companion volume Medieval Latin Lyrics. A second anthology, More Latin Lyrics, was compiled in the 1940s but not published until after her death. Her other works range widely in subject matter. Her historical novel Peter Abelard was published in 1933 and was critically well received and became a bestseller. She also wrote many articles for the Evening Standard, the Manchester Guardian and The Nation, and did lecturing and broadcasting. Waddell received honorary degrees from Columbia, Belfast, Durham and St. Andrews and won the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature. A serious debilitating neurological disease put an end to her writing career in 1950. She died in London in 1965 and was buried in Magherally churchyard, County Down, Northern Ireland. A prize-winning biography of her by the Benedictine nun Dame Felicitas Corrigan was published in 1986.

Search this author Open first work

OL607039A

Overview

Catalog identity and bibliographic footprint for this author.

24 representative editions

Author pages in Bookitis are intended to show only works actually attributed to the author and a representative edition for each of those works.

Catalog identity

How this author appears inside the active Bookitis catalog.

Display name
Helen Waddell
Personal name
Helen Waddell
Source identifier
OL607039A

Featured books

Representative editions for works actually authored by this person.

Works in catalog

Quick navigation into the work-level grouping pages behind the featured books.

Mediaeval latin lyrics
Representative edition published 2018
Open Work
Peter Abelard
Representative edition published 2018
Open Work
The Spoiled Buddha
Representative edition published 2018
Open Work
Lyrics from the Chinese
Representative edition published 2018
Open Work
The Desert Fathers - Translations from the Latin
Representative edition published 2012
Open Work
Stories from Holy Writ
Representative edition published 2007
Open Work
Peter Abelard
Representative edition published 2007
Open Work
Helen Waddell's writings from Japan
Representative edition published 2005
Open Work
The wandering scholars of the Middle Ages
Representative edition published 2000
Open Work
The Desert Fathers
Representative edition published 1998
Open Work
Beasts and saints
Representative edition published 1996
Open Work
Beasts and saints
Representative edition published 1995
Open Work
The wandering scholars
Representative edition published 1989
Open Work
Peter Abelard
Representative edition published 1987
Open Work
More Latin Lyrics
Representative edition published 1985
Open Work
More Latin lyrics, from Virgil to Milton
Representative edition published 1977
Open Work
Mediaeval Latin lyrics
Representative edition published 1977
Open Work
Lyrics from the Chinese
Representative edition published 1974
Open Work
The Wandering Scholars
Representative edition published 1961
Open Work
Peter Abelard
Representative edition published 1957
Open Work
The universal recorder album
Representative edition published 1957
Open Work
The Desert Fathers
Representative edition published 1957
Open Work
The wandering scholars
Representative edition published 1954
Open Work