The 'Lives' and Writings of Edith Rickert (1871-1938) : Novelist, Cryptologist, and World-Class Chaucerian

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 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 put contemporary 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. Prologue: Edith Rickert, “My Book” Acknowledgments Contents About the Author Abbreviations List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: “Foundations” Part I: First Things, 1871–1900 Chapter 3: With the Family The Rickerts The Newburghs Canal Dover “Before I Went to School” School Chapter 4: Vassar College, 1887–1891 “Your Place at Home is Kept for You” “Fun and Hard, Hard Work” Chapter 5: “A New Place” Loss and Betrayal Hyde Park Chapter 6: “The Wide, Wide World,” 1896–1897 First-time International Travelers “Fliegende Blätter” Kate Platt and the Spinsters of Mecklenburgh Square “I Believe I Shall Succeed!” “We Are Not New Women” Peddling “My ‘Eileau Pria’ (‘Beautiful Island’)” Chapter 7: Vassar Again, 1897–1900 A New Home? Summer, 1898 “Such Absolute Misery” Enter John Matthews Manly Farewell to Vassar Part II: With Kate, 1900–1909 Chapter 8: “Happy Beyond the Telling” 3 Great James Street “Little Hungry Bohemia” “‘Knock,’ says Kate, ‘more prizes!’” Out of the Cypress Swamp Chapter 9: Shetland Bengarth Cottage, Mid Yell The Reaper Shetland Postscript Chapter 10: “In the Depths” 31 Clevedon Mansions The Portcullis Falls Bruges and “Toy Town” Chapter 11: Tibbles Chapter 12: “It Ought to Be Enough” Espiñal Folly Diaries’ End The Eighteenth Century, Babies, and Wild Adventures Manly Again Chapter 13: Into the Sunshine Provence The Golden Hawk Provençal Projects “A Wonderful Dip Into Life” Chapter 14: Return to the States An Exploratory Visit Tibbles Again “A Castle in Spain” Marlowe’s Death, and “The Chair that Smiled” Chapter 15: Boston, 1909–1910 A Professional Partnership? D. C. Heath & Co. The Beggar in the Heart “A Bird Crushed” Part III: With Manly, 1910–1938 Chapter 16: Re-enter John Matthews Manly Chapter 17: Chicago, 1911–1917 “Chaucer is All Very Well” Magazines and the Commercial Club Fiction Textbooks “Ashen Days” Chapter 18: Washington DC, 1917–1918 Bacon Ciphers The Waberski Cipher Chapter 19: After the War, 1919–1924 Loss and Uncertainty Textbooks Again Writing for Children Academia Calls Chapter 20: Associate Professor, 1924–1930 “Life Is Meant For Work” “A Big Piece of Machinery” New Methods for the Study of Literature Chapter 21: Later Fiction “Closing In” Symbols/Art Sketches Severn Woods/Olwen Growing Chapter 22: Professor Breakdown The Great Blasket “Speaking of Chaucer” To Write Again? Chapter 23: Last Things 1935–1936 September 1936–May 23, 1938 Aftermath Afterword Bibliography Archives Edith Rickert: Published Works (by Year) Posthumous Edith Rickert: Published Works (by Genre) Stories Novels Children’s Books Poems Miscellaneous Articles Reviews Scholarly Articles Textbooks Editions, Translations, and Compilations Edith Rickert: Extant Unpublished Works (by Genre) Stories Novels Intended as Novels? Novellas Books Poems Sketches Collections Essays and Notes Index