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American Classicist: The Life and Loves of Edith Hamilton
A biography of the remarkable writer whose bestselling Mythology has introduced millions of readers to the literature of the classical world
Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) didn't publish her first book until she was sixty-two. But over the next three decades this former headmistress would become the twentieth century's most famous interpreter of the classical world. Even today, Hamilton's Mythology (1942), remains the standard version of ancient tales and sells tens of thousands of copies a year. During the Cold War, her influence extended to politics, as she argued that postwar America could learn from the fate of Athens after its victory in the Persian Wars. In American Classicist, Victoria Houseman tells the fascinating life story of a remarkable classicist whose ideas were shaped by--and aspired to shape--her times.
Hamilton studied Latin and Greek from an early age, earned a BA and MA at Bryn Mawr College, and ran a girls' prep school for twenty-six years. After retiring, she turned to writing and began a relationship with the pianist and stockbroker Doris Fielding Reid. The two women were partners for more than forty years, and entertained journalist, diplomats, and politicians in their Washington, D.C., house. Hamilton travelled extensively around the world, formed friendships with Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, and was made an honorary citizen of Athens. While Hamilton believed that the ancient Greeks represented the peak of world civilization, Houseman shows that this suffragist, pacifist, and anti-imperialist was far from an apologist for Western triumphalism.
An absorbing narrative of an eventful life, American Classicist reveals how Hamilton's Greek and Roman worlds held up a mirror to midcentury America even as she strived to convey a timeless beauty that continues to enthrall readers.
Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) didn't publish her first book until she was sixty-two. But over the next three decades this former headmistress would become the twentieth century's most famous interpreter of the classical world. Even today, Hamilton's Mythology (1942), remains the standard version of ancient tales and sells tens of thousands of copies a year. During the Cold War, her influence extended to politics, as she argued that postwar America could learn from the fate of Athens after its victory in the Persian Wars. In American Classicist, Victoria Houseman tells the fascinating life story of a remarkable classicist whose ideas were shaped by--and aspired to shape--her times.
Hamilton studied Latin and Greek from an early age, earned a BA and MA at Bryn Mawr College, and ran a girls' prep school for twenty-six years. After retiring, she turned to writing and began a relationship with the pianist and stockbroker Doris Fielding Reid. The two women were partners for more than forty years, and entertained journalist, diplomats, and politicians in their Washington, D.C., house. Hamilton travelled extensively around the world, formed friendships with Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound, and was made an honorary citizen of Athens. While Hamilton believed that the ancient Greeks represented the peak of world civilization, Houseman shows that this suffragist, pacifist, and anti-imperialist was far from an apologist for Western triumphalism.
An absorbing narrative of an eventful life, American Classicist reveals how Hamilton's Greek and Roman worlds held up a mirror to midcentury America even as she strived to convey a timeless beauty that continues to enthrall readers.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
528 pages, Hardcover
Published October 3, 2023
6 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
About the author
Victoria Houseman
1 bookVictoria Houseman is a historian and associate professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 19, 2025
Just finished:
Princeton University Press, 2023.
Back in high school, I took a mythology class my freshman year. The textbook was Edith Hamilton's mythology. Although over 60 years since she published that book, it was still the go-to text for mythology based on it's plain language.
Because of my background with her book, I got this biography. Edith was born near Munich (1867-1963) and grew up in Indiana (her father served two terms in Congress as a Democrat). She eventually attended Bryn Mawr with the goal of eventually earning a doctorate in the classics (she only earned a masters degree). She served as headmistress at the Bryn Mawr school in Baltimore before eventually moving to New York, and later DC, and writing on Ancient Greece and Rome.
Edith was also honored as an honorary citizen if Greece and attended JFK's inauguration.
To me, Edith Hamilton was a woman who defied simple categories. She was an advocate for women's suffrage, an isolationist, a pacifist, a frequent Bible reader, a Robert Taft Republican, and a lesbian. Hamilton had long relationships with Lucy Martin Donnelly and later Doris Fielding Reid.
I personally thought the book spent more time on her relationships with the two women above than on her work as a classicist, which I figured would have been the opposite. That said, Houseman's representation of Hamilton presents her as a complex human being that wouldn't fit the political mold today.
Princeton University Press, 2023.
Back in high school, I took a mythology class my freshman year. The textbook was Edith Hamilton's mythology. Although over 60 years since she published that book, it was still the go-to text for mythology based on it's plain language.
Because of my background with her book, I got this biography. Edith was born near Munich (1867-1963) and grew up in Indiana (her father served two terms in Congress as a Democrat). She eventually attended Bryn Mawr with the goal of eventually earning a doctorate in the classics (she only earned a masters degree). She served as headmistress at the Bryn Mawr school in Baltimore before eventually moving to New York, and later DC, and writing on Ancient Greece and Rome.
Edith was also honored as an honorary citizen if Greece and attended JFK's inauguration.
To me, Edith Hamilton was a woman who defied simple categories. She was an advocate for women's suffrage, an isolationist, a pacifist, a frequent Bible reader, a Robert Taft Republican, and a lesbian. Hamilton had long relationships with Lucy Martin Donnelly and later Doris Fielding Reid.
I personally thought the book spent more time on her relationships with the two women above than on her work as a classicist, which I figured would have been the opposite. That said, Houseman's representation of Hamilton presents her as a complex human being that wouldn't fit the political mold today.
September 13, 2025
Houseman has provided an excellent biography tying Edith Hamilton's life perfectly into American academic, cultural and intellectual history.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews