Arthur Woolgar Verrall was a classics scholar associated with Trinity College, Cambridge, and the first occupant of the the King Edward VII Chair of English. He was noted for his translations and for his challenging, unorthodox interpretations of the Greek dramatists, such as his commentary on Agamemnon. His detractors found his readings contorted and too ingenious. After his death, admirers M. A. Bayfield and J. D. Duff edited Verrall's Collected Literary Essays. Classical and Modern and Collected Essays in Greek and Latin Scholarship 1914. Among his publications, Euripides the Rationalist was highly influential.
He was tutor to Alesteir Crowley.
His wife Margaret Verrall (1859–1918) a lecturer in classics at Newnham College gained more fame through her psychic researches and as a medium. She was a member of a Cambridge group who were early explorers of spiritualism and automatic writing. Their daughter married William Henry Salter, who was later President of the Society for Psychical Research (1947-48).
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Last updated: 10-21-2005 16:30:18
