Helen Waddell was born in Japan in 1889, the youngest of ten children. The family returned to Ireland where she graduated brilliantly from Queen’s University Belfast. Thwarted from pursuing a promising academic career by duty to her ailing stepmother, at thirty-one she went to Oxford University to undertake a PhD, moving to Paris to continue her research into the humanism of the Latin Middle Ages, published in 1927 as The Wandering Scholars. While working for a London publishing company she wrote Peter Abelard which was one of the biggest selling books of the 1930s and Waddell was propelled into literary stardom. She died in London in 1965.

Helen Waddell was born in Japan in 1889, the youngest of ten children. The family returned to Ireland where she graduated brilliantly from Queen’s University Belfast. Thwarted from pursuing a promising academic career by duty to her ailing stepmother, at thirty-one she went to Oxford University to undertake a PhD, moving to Paris to continue her research into the humanism of the Latin Middle Ages, published in 1927 as The Wandering Scholars. While working for a London publishing company she wrote Peter Abelard which was one of the biggest selling books of the 1930s and Waddell was propelled into literary stardom. She died in London in 1965.