Edith Hamilton

Edith Hamilton, a learned woman of classical literature and thought, received her first taste of the classics at age seven, when her father started her on Latin lessons. Her parents raised her with this rigorous education in Indiana, although she was born in Dresden, Germany (August 12, 1867). Hamilton took further education at Miss Porter's School in Connecticut, Bryn Mawr College, and University of Leipzig, Germany, earning her qualifications as a classicist and in education. Before retiring in 1922, she served as the tireless and devoted headmistress of Bryn Mawr School for Girls. It was upon her retirement that Hamilton took up her career as an author. Her first work, and one of her most noteworthy, was The Greek Way (1930), an exploration of classical thought founded on the classics themselves. Hamilton's keen and somewhat alternative insight into the classics makes her work a fascinating wealth of knowledge. The Roman Way, The Echo of Greece, and Mythology are among these brilliant volumes. In 1957, at the age of ninety, Hamilton had the privilege of traveling in Greece, where she was distinguished as an honorary citizen of Athens. Edith Hamilton died on May 31, 1963, at ninety-five years of age.