Wikipedia

Kathleen Freeman (classicist)

For the American actress, seeKathleen Freeman.

Kathleen Freeman(22 June 1897 – 21 February 1959) was a Britishclassicalscholar and author of detective novels. Her detective fiction was published under the pseudonymMary Fitt.Freeman was a lecturer in Greek at theUniversity College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff,between 1919 and 1946.[1]

Kathleen Freeman
Kathleen Freeman
Born22 June 1897
Yardley, Birmingham,England
Died21 February 1959(1959-02-21)(aged 61)
St Mellons,Wales
Academic background
Alma materCardiff University(as University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire)
Academic work
DisciplineAncient Greek philosophy
InstitutionsCardiff University(as University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire),Philosophical Society of England

Early life and education

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Kathleen Freeman was born inYardley, Birmingham,and was the daughter of a commercial traveller, Charles H. Freeman, and Catharine Freeman, née Mawdesley. By the 1911 census, the family had moved to an eight-room house at 86 Conway Road,Cardiff.[2]: 315 [3][4]Freeman's mother died in 1919, and her father died in 1932.[2]: 315 Freeman attendedCanton High Schoolon Market Road in Cardiff, which opened in 1907. Boys and girls were both educated in the school but separately in different subjects: Canton High School offered Latin but not to girls, and Freeman's schooling did not include Greek or Latin.[2][4]

In a field dominated by men, she was an unlikely candidate to become a classicist of note.[2]: 315 No details have been found about when or with whom she started to learn ancient Greek.[2]: 316 Freeman knew Latin, French, German, Italian, and ancient and modern Greek. Except for French, which was taught at Canton High School, it remains unclear how she learnt these languages.[2]: 316 

Freeman won a scholarship to study at theUniversity College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff,which began to accept male and female students in 1893.[2]: 317 [5]She began her degree in 1915 and studied with ProfessorGilbert Norwood.[3][4]

Academic career

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Following her graduation in 1918 when she was awarded a BA, Freeman remained at University College and was appointed Lecturer in Greek in 1919. She went on to earn anMAin 1922 and aDLittin 1940.[6]A 1922 picture of the faculty at University College shows 41 men and 10 women. Only one of these women,Ida Beata Saxby,had adoctorate(University of London, 1918).[2]: 318 [7]

Freeman is best known for her worksThe Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Companion to Diels, Fragmente Der Vorsokratiker(1946), andAncilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers(1947/48),a translation of and handbook to the fragments ofPre-Socratic philosopherscollected byDiels.[8][5]

Girls' entrance, Canton High School, Market Road, Cardiff

From early in her career, Freeman worked to bring Greek texts to the general public through her work in translating texts and presenting her ideas to general audiences.[2]: 333 Freeman featured onBBCradio in 1926 presenting a series on 'Writers of Greece', including Greek authors such asAristophanes,ThucydidesandEmpedocles.[9][10][11]

During theSecond World WarFreeman delivered lectures on Greece for theMinistry of Informationand in the National Scheme of Education for HM Forces in South Wales and Monmouthshire.[12][2]: 323 [4]She further contributed to the war effort with her selections of translations from Greek authors which featured inThe Western Mail,a Cardiff-based newspaper. These were later published as the book,It Has All Happened Before: What the Greeks Thought of their Nazis(1941).[13]Her publicationsVoices of Freedom(1943),What They Said at the Time: A Survey of the Causes of the Second World War(1945) and her work with thePhilosophical Society of England,where she acted as Supervisor of Studies from 1948 to 1952 before becoming the Chairman in 1952, are further testimony to her desire to make Greek ideas accessible through translation. Freeman resigned from the university in 1946 in order to pursue her research and writing.[14]

Fiction-writing career

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Freeman enjoyed success as a writer of fiction and wrote under the pseudonymsMary Fitt(1936–60),Stuart Mary Wick(1948; 1950),Clare St. Donat(1950) andCaroline Cory(1956).[15][16][17][4]

In 1926, in addition to her studyThe Work and Life of Solon,Freeman published a collection of short storiesThe Intruder and Other Stories,and her first novelMartin Hanner. A Comedy.[18]In 1936 she began publishing crime fiction under the pseudonym Mary Fitt, writing 27 books and a number of short stories. In 1950 she became a member of theDetection Club.[19]Her books were critically acclaimed at the time, although since her death many have been out of print.[20][21]She also wrote twelve children's stories andT'other Miss Austen(1956), a study ofJane Austen.

In recent years Freeman's work has been re-assessed, especially in the light of Welsh women andmodernism.[22]: Acknowledgements Her short stories have also been described as antecedents of the Kate North'squeerstories, and, as of 2019, republication of some of her short stories was planned.[23]: 442 

Personal life

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Formerly Canton High School, now Chapter Arts Centre, Market Road, Cardiff

From some time in the 1930s until her death, she lived with her girlfriend, Dr. Liliane Marie Catherine Clopet (1901–1987), aGPand author, at Lark's Rise, a house on Druidstone Road inSt Mellons,now a district ofCardiff.[24][1]

Freeman dedicated all her novels (written as Freeman, rather than Fitt) to Clopet fromThis Love(1929) onwards. The presentation copy ofThe Work and Life of Solonhas survived, which Freeman dedicated to Clopet, dated to 14 July 1926.[25]Freeman's inscription includes a slight misspelling of Clopet's name, which has been thought by antiquarian booksellerPeter Harrington,[26]to indicate that Freeman and Clopet were in the early stages of their relationship.[25]Freeman died in 1959 in St. Mellons at the age of 61. Clopet considerably outlived Freeman, dying in 1987 inNewport.[24]

Bibliography

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Academic publications

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  • 1926:The Work and Life of Solon, with a translation of his poems,Cardiff: University of Wales Press Board.OCLC756460254[27]
  • 1941:It Has All Happened Before: What the Greeks Thought of their Nazis,London: F. Muller Ltd.OCLC5290960
  • 1943:Voices of Freedom,London: F. Muller Ltd.OCLC912104035
  • 1945:What They Said at the Time: A Survey of the Causes of the Second World War,London: F. Muller Ltd.OCLC921002880
  • 1946:The Pre-Socratic Philosophers; a companion to Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,Oxford: Blackwell.[28]OCLC54961908
  • 1946:The Murder of Herodes and Other Trials from the Athenian law courts,London, MacDonald.OCLC607833964
  • 1947:The Greek way: an Anthology. Translations from verse and prose,London, MacDonald.OCLC577963906
  • 1947/48:Ancilla to the pre-Socratic philosophers: a complete translation of the fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,Oxford and Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell and Harvard University Press.[29][30]OCLC706866300
  • 1948:The Philoctetes of Sophocles, a modern version,London: Muller.OCLC10111365
  • 1950:Greek city-states,London, Macdonald; New York: W. W. Norton.OCLC654595269
  • 1952:God, Man and State. Greek concepts,London: Macdonald.[31]OCLC307525
  • 1954:The Paths of Justice,London: Lutterworth Press.OCLC602389093
  • 1954:Everyday things in Ancient Greece,London, Batsford. A one-volume revision ofEveryday Things in Homeric Greece, Everyday Things in Archaic Greece, and Everyday Things in Classical Greeceby C. H. Quennell and Marjorie Quennell. 1929–32.OCLC401803
  • 1954:The Sophists. Translation of Mario Untersteiner, I sofisti,Oxford: Blackwell.OCLC504343285

Selected fictional publications

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  • 1926:The Intruder and Other Stories,London: Jonathan Cape.OCLC560414633
  • 1926:Martin Hanner. A Comedy,New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.OCLC560414667
  • 1936:Three Sisters Flew Home,London: Nicholson & Watson.OCLC560845582
  • 1937:The Three Hunting Horns,London: Nicholson & Watson.OCLC752858530
  • 1938:Expected Death,London: Nicholson & Watson.OCLC8717293
  • 1941:Death on Herons' Mere,London: Michael Joseph.OCLC560844590
  • 1941:Aftermath of Murder,New York: Doubleday.OCLC13960788
  • 1946:Death and the Pleasant Voices,London: Michael Joseph.OCLC25115981
  • 1948:And Where's Mr Bellamy?,London: Hutchinson.OCLC16298203
  • 1941:Death and Mary Dazill,London: Michael Joseph.OCLC11233504
  • 1950:Pity for Pamela,London: Macdonald & Co.OCLC25115985
  • 1952:Clues to Christabel,London: Pan Books.OCLC155919411
  • 1953:The Night-Watchman's FriendLondon: Macdonald & Co.
  • 1959:Mizmaze,London: Michael Joseph.OCLC16252800

Further reading

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  • Biography and bibliographyby M. Eleanor Irwin
  • How to Conceal a Female Scholar; or, the Invisible Classicist of Cardiffby Edith Hall
  • Deininger, Michelle, and Claire Flay-Petty, "University Connections and Professional Lives: S. Beryl Jones, Kathleen Freeman and Liliane Clopet",New Welsh Reader,119 (December 2018).
  • Deininger, Michelle and Claire Flay-Petty, "The Cash-Box and The Specimen Tin",Planet: The Welsh Internationalist,226 (Summer 2017).
  • Greene, W. C. (1949), "Review: Pre-Socratic Philosophers Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels by Kathleen Freeman",The Classical Journal,Vol. 45, No. 1 (October 1949), pp. 53–4JSTOR3293307
  • Irwin, M. E. (2004), "Freeman, Kathleen (1897–1959)", in Todd, R. B (ed.),The Dictionary of British Classicists. Volume I, A-F,Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, pp. 343–4
  • Irwin, Eleanor (2016), "An Unconventional Classicist: the Work and Life of Kathleen Freeman" in Rosie Wyles andEdith Hall(eds),Women classical scholars: unsealing the fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly(Oxford University Press)[32][2]
  • Turner, Nick (2019). "Miss Fitt's Misfits: Mary Fitt and the Case of the Vanished Crime Writer".Clues: A Journal of Detection.37(2): 105–14.

References

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  1. ^abFor a brief note on Liliane Clopet, her career and her writings seeBiography and bibliographyby M. Eleanor Irwin andHow to Conceal a Female Scholar; or, the Invisible Classicist of Cardiffby Edith Hall.
  2. ^abcdefghijkIrwin, M. Eleanor (27 October 2016), Wyles, Rosie; Hall, Edith (eds.),"An Unconventional Classicist",Women Classical Scholars,Oxford University Press, pp. 313–334,doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198725206.003.0016,ISBN978-0-19-872520-6,retrieved22 February2022
  3. ^ab"Inspirational People: 3. Kathleen Freeman – Classicist and Fiction Writer".Cardiff University.13 December 2016.Retrieved22 February2022.
  4. ^abcde"FREEMAN, KATHLEEN ('Mary Fitt'; 1897 - 1959), classical scholar and writer | Dictionary of Welsh Biography".biography.wales.Retrieved1 October2024.
  5. ^ab"Classics & Class » Kathleen Freeman's Ancillary Classicism".3 June 2014.Retrieved9 April2022.
  6. ^Irwin, M. E. (2004) 'Freeman, Kathleen (1897–1959)', in Todd, R. B ed.The Dictionary of British Classicists. Volume I, A-F.p. 343.
  7. ^Saxby, Ida Beata (1918).Some conditions affecting the growth and permanence of desires(Thesis).OCLC1016050303.
  8. ^Dain, Alphonse (1951)."Kathleen Freeman, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers. A Companion to Diels Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 1946; Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, A complete translation of the Fragments..., 1948".Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé.1(2): 111–112.
  9. ^"Issue 162".genome.ch.bbc.co.uk.Retrieved27 June2018.
  10. ^"Broadcasting."Times,29 November 1926, 21.The Times Digital Archive(accessed 23 March 2022).External Link
  11. ^"Programmes."Times,19 November 1928, 8.The Times Digital Archive(accessed 23 March 2022).External Link
  12. ^Freeman, Kathleen (27 October 2016).Greek City-States.Hauraki Publishing.ISBN978-1-78720-196-5.
  13. ^William, Charles (25 October 1941). "Ancient Tyrants".The Times Literary Supplement.No. 2073. London, England. p. 531.
  14. ^Irwin, M. E. (2004) 'Freeman, Kathleen (1897–1959)', in Todd, R. B ed.The Dictionary of British Classicists. Volume I, A-F.pp. 343–4.
  15. ^Irwin, M. E. (2004) 'Freeman, Kathleen (1897–1959)', in Todd, R. B ed.The Dictionary of British Classicists. Volume I, A-F.p. 344.
  16. ^For a comprehensive list of Freeman's writings seeBiography and bibliographyby M. Eleanor Irwin.
  17. ^Carty (2014).A Dictionary of Literary Pseudonyms in the English Language.New York. p. 448.ISBN978-1-135-95578-6.OCLC931534831.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ^"A SEDATE TRIANGLE; MARTIN HANNER. A Comedy. By Kathleen Freeman, 328 pp., New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. $2.50".The New York Times.17 October 1926.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved22 February2022.
  19. ^"gadetection / Detection Club, The".gadetection.pbworks.com.Retrieved22 February2022.
  20. ^Turner, N. (2019). "Miss Fitt's Misfits: Mary Fitt and the Case of the Vanished Crime Writer".Clues: A Journal of Detection.37(2): 105–114.ISSN0742-4248.
  21. ^"Mary Fitt".www.litencyc.com.Retrieved23 March2022.
  22. ^Bohata, Kirsti; Morgan, Mihangel; Osborne, Huw (21 October 2021).Queer Square Mile.Parthian Books.ISBN978-1-913640-25-5.
  23. ^The Cambridge history of Welsh literature.Geraint Evans, Helen Fulton. Cambridge, United Kingdom. 2019.ISBN978-1-316-22720-6.OCLC1099309674.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  24. ^ab"Kathleen Freeman".www.utsc.utoronto.ca.Retrieved15 August2020.
  25. ^ab"The Work and Life of Solon. With a Translation of his Poems. by FREEMAN, Kathleen.: (1926) Signed by Author(s) | Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB".www.abebooks.co.uk.Retrieved15 August2020.
  26. ^"Peter Harrington | ABA: The Antiquarian Bookseller Association".dev.aba.org.uk.Archived fromthe originalon 8 May 2021.Retrieved17 May2022.
  27. ^Walker, E. M. (1927)."The Work and Life of Solon - The Work and Life of Solon. With a translation of his Poems. By Kathleen Freeman, M.A., Lecturer in Greek, University of South Wales, Monmouthshire. Pp. 236. Cardiff: The University of Wales Press Board; London: Humphrey Milford, 1926. Cloth, 10s. net".The Classical Review.41(1): 17–19.doi:10.1017/S0009840X00031437.ISSN1464-3561.S2CID246880212.
  28. ^"Pre-Socratic Philosophers. A companion to Diels's Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. By Kathleen Freeman. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946, pp. xiii+486. 25 s".Greece and Rome.17(51): 132–133. 1948.doi:10.1017/S0017383500010196.ISSN0017-3835.
  29. ^Morrow, Glenn R. (1949)."Review of Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker".The Classical Weekly.43(2): 28–29.doi:10.2307/4342608.ISSN1940-641X.JSTOR4342608.
  30. ^K., H.; Freeman, Kathleen (27 October 1949)."Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels' Fragmente der Vorsokratiker".The Journal of Philosophy.46(22): 717.doi:10.2307/2020243.ISSN0022-362X.JSTOR2020243.
  31. ^Squire, John (9 February 1952)."Greek Views on Five Fundamental Matters. God, Man and State. Greek concepts by Kathleen Freeman".The Illustrated London News.p. 206.Retrieved23 March2022.
  32. ^Women classical scholars: unsealing the fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly.Wyles, Rosie and Hall, Edith (First ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom. 2016.ISBN978-0191038297.OCLC964291395.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
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