Walter Leaf – författare

Walter Leaf (1852-1927) was a banker and classicist, whose various positions as chairman of the Westminster Bank, founder of the London Chamber of Commerce and president of the Hellenic Society reflected his wide-ranging professional and scholarly interests. Leaf was educated at Harrow School and won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1870. He became senior classic in 1874 and was elected to a fellowship the following year. As a scholar Leaf was concerned with uncovering the physical reality of the classical world, a stance which set him apart from Jane Harrison and the Cambridge Ritual School. Leaf's The Iliad, with introduction and notes, first appeared in two volumes (1886-1888), and was regarded for several decades as the best English edition of Homer's epic poem. Volume 1 of the 1900 edition comprises Leaf's preface, an introduction to books 1-12 of the poem, and the annotated text.

Walter Leaf (1852-1927) was a banker and classicist, whose various positions as chairman of the Westminster Bank, founder of the London Chamber of Commerce and president of the Hellenic Society reflected his wide-ranging professional and scholarly interests. Leaf was educated at Harrow School and won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1870. He became senior classic in 1874 and was elected to a fellowship the following year. As a scholar Leaf was concerned with uncovering the physical reality of the classical world, a stance which set him apart from Jane Harrison and the Cambridge Ritual School. Leaf's The Iliad, with introduction and notes, first appeared in two volumes (1886-1888), and was regarded for several decades as the best English edition of Homer's epic poem. Volume 2 of the 1902 edition comprises Leaf's preface, an introduction to books 13-24 of the poem, and the annotated text.

This book by the Russian novelist Vsevolod Sergeyevich Solovyov (1849-1903), translated and abridged by Walter Leaf (1852-1927) and published in 1895, reflects on the life of Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), co-founder of the theosophy movement in the United States. Originally published over eight months in literary magazine Russy Vyestnik ('Russian Messenger'), the book considers the controversy that engulfed Blavatsky in her final years over displays of her 'phenomena'. Solovyov was living in Paris in 1884 and researching spiritualist literature when he met Blavatsky (whose work was known in Russia), but he became disillusioned with both her and her movement. Leaf, a classical scholar and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, undertook the translation for the Council of the Society for Psychical Research, which had investigated Blavatsky's work. This account now provides a window on to the life of one of Europe's most controversial nineteenth-century spiritual leaders.

Walter Leaf (1852-1927), banker, classicist and alpinist, held various positions as chairman of the Westminster Bank, founder of the London Chamber of Commerce and president of the Hellenic Society, reflecting his wide-ranging professional and scholarly interests. Leaf was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1875. As a scholar, Leaf was concerned with uncovering the physical reality of the classical world, and in this 1912 work he 'aims at testing the tradition of the Trojan War by comparing the text of Homer with the natural conditions described, or more often implicitly assumed, in the Iliad'. This book draws on the archaeological work of Schliemann and Dörpfeld at Troy, but also on Leaf's own expert knowledge of the Iliad (of which his two-volume edition is also reissued in this series), thereby providing a thorough exploration of the historical geography of the Troad.

Andrew Lang, assisted by Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers, has put the old Greek epos into contemporary English prose. This book is annotated with a rare extensive biographical sketch of the author, Andrew Lang, written by Sir Edmund Gosse, CB, a contemporary poet and writer.