Mary Lascelles

For the Tudor gentlewoman, see Mary Lassells.

Mary Lascelles
FBA
Born(1900-02-07)7 February 1900
Died10 December 1995(1995-12-10) (aged 95)
NationalityBritish
AwardsRose Mary Crawshay Prize, British Academy (1940 and 1980)
Academic background
Alma materLady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Academic work
DisciplineEnglish Literature
Sub-discipline

Mary Madge Lascelles FBA (7 February 1900 – 10 December 1995) was a British literary scholar, specialising in Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, and Walter Scott.[1] She was vice-principal of Somerville College, Oxford, from 1947 to 1960, and a university lecturer then reader in English literature 1960 from to 1967 at the University of Oxford.[2][3]

Early life and education

Lascelles was born on 7 February 1900 on Grenada, then a British colony, to Madeline Lascelles (née Barton) and William Horace Lascelles.[1][2] Her paternal grandfather was Henry Lascelles, 4th Earl of Harewood.[4] When she was three, her family moved back to England, where they lived successively in Monmouth, Suffolk, and then Norfolk.[1] She learnt to read only at the age of eight, having previously been read to by her parents.[1] Her early education was by governess, before attending Sherborne School for Girls, a private boarding school, from the age of 15.[1][2]

In 1919 Lascelles matriculated into Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, then an all-girls college of the University of Oxford, to study English.[1][3] Her tutor was Janet Spens and she also attended lectures by Walter Raleigh.[1] She graduated with a first class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1922; women had been allowed to graduate with degrees from Oxford only since 1920.[1] From 1922 she undertook postgraduate studies under the supervision of George Stuart Gordon.[1]

In 1923 she also held a research studentship at Westfield College,[2] during which she "had access to an unpublished manuscript of a little-known Scottish version of the Alexander story, Sir Gilbert Haye's Buik of King Alexander the Conqueror" which was held at the British Museum.[1] She completed her Bachelor of Letters (BLitt) degree in 1926.[1] Her thesis was later published as, "Alexander and the Earthly Paradise in Mediaeval English Writings" in Medium Ævum.[1][5]

Academic career

After leaving Oxford, Lascelles was briefly a teacher at St Leonards School, a private school in St Andrews, Scotland.[1] She then moved to Royal Holloway College, London, where she had been appointed assistant lecturer in 1936.[1][2] There, she was required to give 13 lectures a week during the following two years.[1] One of the lecture courses was on Jane Austen.[1]

In 1931, Lascelles moved to Somerville College, Oxford, where she had been appointed a tutor in English Language and Literature.[2] The following year, in 1932, she was elected a fellow of Somerville College.[1][3] Her early teaching requirements were focused on "literature from the Middle Ages to 1830".[1] During the Second World War, she continued teaching at Oxford; this included teaching English at Somerville and "lecturing to naval cadets in the men's college".[1] She also acted as secretary to the Home Guard unit based near her parents' home in Norfolk during the long vacations (summer holidays).[1] From 1947 to 1960, she also served as vice-principal of Somerville College under Dame Janet Vaughan.[1][3] In 1960, she was appointed a university lecturer in English literature, and thereby had to stop tutoring, although she retained her fellowship as a professorial fellow.[1][2] From 1966 to 1967, she was Reader in English Literature.[2][3] In 1967, with her eyesight fading, she retired from full-time academia and was appointed an honorary fellow of Somerville College.[1][2]

Later life

Lascelles continued her research after leaving full-time academia. She would go on to publish three more books.[1][2] She died on 10 December 1995 in Cromer, Norfolk, England; she was aged 95.[3] She left many books to Somerville College Library.[6]

Honours

Lascelles was awarded the 1940 Rose Mary Crawshay Prize by the British Academy for her book, Jane Austen and Her Art (1939).[7] In 1962, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[2] In 1982, she was once more awarded the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, this time for her book, The Story-Teller Retrieves the Past (1980).[7]

Selected works

  • Lascelles, Mary (1939). Jane Austen and Her Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.[8] 1995 reprint
  • Lascelles, Mary (1953). Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. London: Athlone Press.[9]
  • Lascelles, Mary (1968). "Scott and the Art of Revision". In Mack, Maynard; Gregor, Ian (eds.). Imagined Worlds: essays on some English novels and novelists in honour of John Butt. London: Methuen. pp. 139–56.
  • Lascelles, Mary, ed. (1971). The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol 9: A Journey to the Western Island of Scotland. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300012514.
  • Lascelles, Mary (1973). Notions and Facts: Collected Criticism and Research. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0198120223.
  • Lascelles, Mary (1980). The Story-Teller Retrieves the Past: Historical Fiction and Fictitious History in the Art of Scott, Stevenson, Kipling, and Some Others. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0198128021.

Poetry

  • Lascelles, Mary (1971). The Adversaries and Other Poems. Cambridge: Rampant Lions Press.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Lamont, Claire (2001). "Mary Madge Lascelles 1900–1995" (PDF). Proceedings of the British Academy. 111. British Academy: 575–91. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "LASCELLES, Mary Madge". Who Was Who. Oxford University Press. April 2014. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Anderson, Eric (14 December 1995). "OBITUARY: Mary Lascelles". The Independent. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  4. ^ "Hon. William Horace Lascelles". The Peerage. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  5. ^ Lascelles, M. M. (1936). "ALEXANDER AND THE EARTHLY PARADISE IN MEDIÆVAL ENGLISH WRITINGS". Medium Ævum. 5 (1): 31–47. doi:10.2307/43631083. JSTOR 43631083.
  6. ^ "Special Collections". some.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 August 2018.
  7. ^ a b "The Rose Mary Crawshay Prize" (PDF). The British Academy. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  8. ^ Tompkins, J. M. S. (January 1940). "Reviewed Work: Jane Austen and Her Art by Mary Lascelles". The Review of English Studies. 16 (61): 101–104. doi:10.1093/res/os-XVI.61.101. JSTOR 510041.
  9. ^ Jenkins, Harold (October 1954). "Reviewed Work: Shakespeare's Measure for Measure by Mary Lascelles". The Review of English Studies. 5 (20): 409–411. doi:10.1093/res/V.20.409. JSTOR 511346.