Wilmer Cave Wright


Wilmer Cave Wright was a British-born American classical philologist, and a contributor to the culture and history of medicine. She was a professor at Bryn Mawr College, where she taught Greek.

Early years and education

Emily Wilmer Cave France was born in Birmingham, England. Her parents were William Haumer and F. E. Cave-Browne-Cave France.
She studied from 1888 to 1892 at Girton College, Cambridge; and from 1892 to 1893, Graduate in Honours, Cambridge Classical Tripos. She earned her Ph.D. in 1895 at the University of Chicago with a comprehensive study of the Sophist and Neoplatonist influences in the literary work of Emperor Julian. She was a Fellow in Greek, Bryn Mawr College, 1892-93; Fellow in Latin, University of Chicago, 1893–94, and Fellow in Greek, 1894–95. She was also a Reader in Greek and Latin, University of Chicago, 1895–96.

Career

From 1897, she taught at Bryn Mawr College, first as Reader in Classics, from 1898 as Associate Professor of Greek, later as Full Professor of Greek. In 1933, she retired.
Wright specialized in late antique literature. Her studies on Julian's writings presupposed great literacy in the ancient literature of previous centuries. Her literary history, which ranged from the Homeric epics to Emperor Julian, was valued in the academic world and highly praised. Her translations of the Sophist of the Eunapius of Sardis and Philostratos as well as the writings of Julian belong to this context. Later, Wright was primarily concerned with the history of early modern medicine and edited annotated reissues of various historical treatises.
On September 6 1906, she married J. Edmund Wright. She died November 16, 1951, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Selected works

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