Maurice Roy Ridley (25 January 1890 in Orcheston St Mary – 12 June 1969) was a writer and poet, and Fellow and Chaplain of Balliol College, Oxford.
Career
Ridley was educated at Clifton College (Bristol) and Balliol College, Oxford.[1] From 1920 to 1945 he was a Fellow and Tutor of Balliol. Ridley spent 1930–1 as a visiting professor at Bowdoin College under the auspices of the Tallman Foundation. He was a lecturer at Bedford College, University of London, from 1948,[1] where he earned a Doctorate of Humane Letters.
In popular culture
Dorothy L. Sayers based the physical description of her character Lord Peter Wimsey (the archetypal British gentleman detective) on that of Ridley after seeing him read his Newdigate Prize-winning poem "Oxford" at the Encaenia ceremony in July 1913.
Awards
- Newdigate Prize, 1913
Works
- Keats' Craftsmanship: A Study in Poetic Development. Oxford: Clarendon. 1933.
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Leicester: Edmund Ward. 1944.
- Studies in Three Literatures. English, Latin, Greek. Contrasts and Comparisons. London: Dent. 1962. ISBN 0313201897.
- Shakespeare's Plays: A Commentary.
- Abraham Lincoln.
- On Reading Shakespeare.
References