Skeat, Walter William, 1835-1912 (philologist)
Person
Dates
- Existence: 1835 - 1912
Biography
The philologist W. W. Skeat was born in London on 21 November 1835. He matriculated at Christ's College, Cambrdge in 1854, studying Mathematics and Theology, and graduated B.A. in 1858. He was elected a Fellow of Christ's in 1860, and was ordained as an Anglican priest the following year. From 1878 until 1912 he was Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in Cambridge. Among many other works he was the author of the 'Etymological Dictionary of the English Language' (1882), and his edition of Langland's 'Piers Plowman' was published in 1886. He was a pioneer in the systematic study of English place names, and was reputed to have been the first Cambridge professor to have ridden a bicycle. He died in Cambridge on 6 October 1912.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Fonds
'A Tale of Ludlow Castle'
Fonds
Reference Code: GBR/0012/MS Add.9786
Scope and Contents
A poem in four cantos, with title page, preface, prologue, notes and appendix. The poem, a story of Fulke Fitzwarine, appears to be loosely based on a thirteenth-century romance 'Fouke le Fitzwarin', as printed in excerpt and described as 'an old Englisch boke yn ryme of the Gestes of Guarine and his sunnes' in Leland's 'Collectanea'. The Fitzwarine family story had been treated in verse earlier in the nineteenth century in 'Fitz-Gwarine, A Ballad of the Welsh Border' (1812) by John F. M....
Dates:
1865 (conjectured; the preface in the printed edition is dated December 1865)
Conditions Governing Access:
Unless restrictions apply, the collection is open for consultation by researchers using the Manuscripts Reading Room at Cambridge University Library. For further details on conditions governing access please contact mss@lib.cam.ac.uk. Information about opening hours and obtaining a Cambridge University Library reader's ticket is available from the Library's website (www.lib.cam.ac.uk).
Found in:
Cambridge University Library
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