Born in Tokyo, the tenth and youngest child of Hugh Waddell, a Presbyterian minister and missionary who was lecturing in the Imperial University. She spent the first eleven years of her life in Japan before her family returned to Belfast.
Waddell was educated at Victoria College for Girls and Queen's University Belfast, where she studied under Professor Gregory Smith, graduating in 1911. She followed her BA with first class honours in English with a master's degree, and in 1919 enrolled in Somerville College, Oxford, to study for her doctorate. A travelling scholarship from Lady Margaret Hall in 1923 allowed her to conduct research in Paris.
She is best known for bringing to light the history of the medieval goliards in her 1927 book The Wandering Scholars, and translating their Latin poetry in the companion volume Medieval Latin Lyrics. A second anthology, More Latin Lyrics, was compiled in the 1940s but not published until after her death. Her other works range widely in subject matter. Her historical novel Peter Abelard was published in 1933 and was critically well received and became a bestseller.
She also wrote many articles for the Evening Standard, the Manchester Guardian and The Nation, and did lecturing and broadcasting.
Waddell received honorary degrees from Columbia, Belfast, Durham and St. Andrews and won the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature.
A serious debilitating neurological disease put an end to her writing career in 1950. She died in London in 1965 and was buried in Magherally churchyard, County Down, Northern Ireland. A prize-winning biography of her by the Benedictine nun Dame Felicitas Corrigan was published in 1986.
77 works Add another?
Most Editions
Most Editions
First Published
Most Recent
Top Rated
Reading Log
Random
Showing all works by author. Would you like to see only ebooks?
Subjects
Medieval and modern Latin poetry, Translations into English, English poetry, History and criticism, Saints, Christian saints, Goliards, Hermits, Latin poetry, Medieval and modern, Translations from Latin, Animals, Christianity, Desert Fathers, History, Legends, Songs and music, Fiction, Latin poetry, Latin poetry, medieval and modern, translations into english, Songs, Latin (Medieval and modern), Students' songs, Biography, Carmina Burana, Chinese poetry, Christian biographyPlaces
Europe, Ireland, France, Great Britain, Japan, New York, New York (N.Y.), New York (State), RomePeople
Peter Abelard (1079-1142), Héloïse (1101-1164), Helen Waddell (1889-1965), Héloïse Abbess of the Paraclete, Prévost abbé (1697-1763), Saul King of IsraelID Numbers
- OLID: OL607039A
- ISNI: 0000000120954627
- VIAF: 2480481
- Wikidata: Q540168
- Inventaire.io: wd:Q540168
Links outside Open Library
No links yet. Add one?
Alternative names
- Helen Jane Waddell
- Waddell, Helen Jane, 1889-1965.
- Helen WADDELL
- Waddell, Helen, 1889-1965.
January 24, 2022 | Edited by Tom Morris | merge authors |
September 27, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | add ISNI |
May 6, 2019 | Edited by mountainaxe1 | Edited without comment. |
May 6, 2019 | Edited by mountainaxe1 | Added new photo |
April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | initial import |