Barbara Reynolds
{{Short description|British scholar and writer (1914–2015)}}
{{About|the English author in Italian Studies|persons of a similar name|Barbara Reynolds (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Barbara Reynolds
| image =
| birth_name = Eva Mary Barbara Reynolds
| birth_date = 13 June 1914
| birth_place = Bristol, England
| death_date = 29 April 2015 (aged 100)
| death_place = Cambridge, England
| occupation = Scholar
| yearsactive =
| spouse = {{plainlist|
- {{marriage|Lewis Thorpe|1939|1977|end=d.}}
- {{marriage|Kenneth Imeson|1982|1994|end=d.}}
}}
| children = 2
}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2023}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2025}}
Eva Mary Barbara Reynolds (13 June 1914 – 29 April 2015) was an English scholar of Italian Studies, lexicographer and translator. She wrote and edited several books concerning Dorothy Sayers and was president of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society.{{cite web|title=The Dorothy L Sayers Society|url=http://www.sayers.org.uk/society.html|publisher=Dorothy L Sayers Society|access-date=19 May 2013}} She turned 100 in June 2014.{{cite news|last = Buchan|first = Lizzy|title = Cambridge University Italian scholar Dr Barbara Reynolds celebrates a distinguished life and career as she celebrates her 100th birthday|newspaper = Cambridge News|publisher = Local World|date = 20 June 2014|url = http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Cambridge-University-Italian-scholar-Dr-Barbara-Reynolds-celebrates-a-distinguished-life-and-career-as-she-celebrates-her-100th-birthday-20140620090008.htm|access-date = 16 July 2014}} Her first marriage was to the philologist and translator Lewis Thorpe.
Early life
The daughter of Alfred Charles Reynolds, and the god-daughter of writer Dorothy L. Sayers, Reynolds was educated at St. Paul's Girls' School and University College London.[https://doi.org/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U32332 Reynolds, Barbara] at Who's Who online
Career
Reynolds was an Assistant Lecturer in Italian at the London School of Economics from 1937 to 1940. During the Second World War, she was an Assistant Lecturer (1940–1945) at the University of Cambridge, then University Lecturer in Italian Literature and Language from 1945 to 1962. She was Warden of Willoughby Hall, University of Nottingham, from 1963 to 1969 and Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham from 1966 to 1978. Alongside her teaching work, she was Chief Executive and General Editor of the Cambridge Italian Dictionary from 1948 to 1981 and Managing Editor of Seven, an Anglo-American literary review, from 1980 to 2004.
Reynolds held the title of Honorary Reader in Italian at the University of Warwick from 1975 to 1980 and was visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, 1974–75, Wheaton College, Illinois, 1977–78, and 1982, Trinity College Dublin, 1980 and 1981, and Hope College, Michigan, 1982. She was chairman of the Dorothy L Sayers Society from 1986 to 1994 and President from 1995. Its officers in recent years have regularly programmed events for 13 June, the common birthday of Sayers and Reynolds.[http://www.sayers.org.uk/society.html Official description of DLS Society] She died on 29 April 2015.[http://www.sayers.org.uk/ Homepage of the Dorothy L. Sayers society]
Awards and honours
The Italian government awarded Reynolds its silver medal for Services to Italian culture in 1964 and made her Cavaliere Ufficiale al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 1978. She won the Edmund G. Gardner Memorial Prize for Italian Studies in 1964 and the Monselice International Literary Prize in 1976 for her translation of Orlando Furioso.{{citation|title=Orlando Furioso|first=Ludovico |last=Ariosto|author-link=Ludovico Ariosto|publisher=Penguin Classics|page=1|year=1975|volume=1|isbn = 0-14-044311-8}}{{citation|url=http://res.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/os-XIII/51/377.pdf|journal= Review of English Studies|page=377|title=Short Notice|year=1937|volume=os-XIII|issue= 51|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/res/os-xiii.51.377}}{{dead link|date=May 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}
Major publications
Her major work is the Cambridge Italian Dictionary, of which she was the General Editor. The first volume appeared in 1962 and the second in 1981. Beyond the Dictionary, her first book was a study of Alessandro Manzoni. She completed and annotated Paradiso, the last volume of Dorothy L. Sayers' three-volume translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, which was left unfinished at Dorothy Sayers' death. Reynolds afterwards translated Dante's La Vita Nuova and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso for the Penguin Classics. She wrote a study of Dante's life and work, Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man. In 1993 Reynolds published a biography of Sayers, who was her god-mother, called Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul (1993). She also edited four volumes of Sayers's letters and an additional volume.
Bibliography
- {{cite book|last=Ariosto | first=Ludovico | translator=Barbara Reynolds | title=Orlando Furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando) | series=Part One | year=1975 | publisher=Penguin Classics | isbn=978-0-140-44311-0}}
- {{cite book|last=Ariosto | first=Ludovico | translator=Barbara Reynolds | title=Orlando Furioso (The Frenzy of Orlando) | series=Part Two | year=1977 | publisher=Penguin Classics | isbn=978-0-140-44310-3}}
- {{cite book|title=Cambridge Italian Dictionary: Volume 1, Italian-English|year=1962|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn= 9780521060592}}
- {{cite book|title=Cambridge Italian Dictionary: Volume 2, English-Italian|year=1981|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521087087|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgeitalian0000unse}}
- {{cite book | title = Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man | year = 2006 | publisher = I.B. Tauris | location = London | isbn = 978-1-84511-161-8 }}
- {{cite book|author=Dante Alighieri|translator=Dorothy L. Sayers|translator2=Barbara Reynolds|title=The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, the Florentine. Cantica III, Paradise|year=1962|publisher=Penguin Books|isbn=978-0140441055|url=https://archive.org/details/divinecomedy00peng}}
- {{cite book | title = Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul | orig-year = 1993 | year = 2002 | publisher = Hodder & Stoughton | location = London | isbn = 0-340-72845-0 }}
- {{cite book|title=The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: Volume One 1899–1936 : the making of a detective novelist|year=1995|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton|location=London|isbn=9780340536230}}
- {{cite book|title=The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: Volume Two 1937–1943: from novelist to playwright|year=1997|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton|location=London|isbn=9780951800041|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/lettersofdorothy00doro}}
- {{cite book|title=The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: Volume Three 1944–1950: a noble daring|year=1998|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton|location=London|isbn=9780951800058}}
- {{cite book|title=The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: Volume Four 1951–1957: in the midst of life|year=2000|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton|location=London|isbn=9780951800065}}
- {{cite book|title=The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: Volume Five: child and woman of her time|year=2002|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton|location=London|isbn=9780951800072}}
- {{cite book | title = The Passionate Intellect: Dorothy L. Sayers's Encounter with Dante | year = 1989 | publisher = Kent State University Press | location = Kent, Ohio | isbn = 0-87338-373-7 }}
- {{cite book|title=Penguin Italian Dictionary|year=1992|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-1854710963|url=https://archive.org/details/penguinconciseit0000reyn}}
- {{cite book|title=Petrarch : The Forgotten Genius.|year=2009|publisher=I.B. Tauris|location=London|isbn=978-1845119850}}
- {{cite book | title = The Translator's Art: Essays in Honour of Betty Radice | editor1-first=William | editor1-last=Radice | editor1-link=William Radice | editor2-first=Barbara | editor2-last=Reynolds | editor2-link=Barbara Reynolds | year = 1987 | publisher = Penguin Books | isbn = 0-14-009226-9 }}
Footnotes
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Category:English women centenarians
Category:Italian–English translators
Category:British lexicographers
Category:People educated at St Paul's Girls' School
Category:Academics of the University of Nottingham
Category:Academics of the University of Warwick
Category:Alumni of University College London
Category:Wheaton College (Illinois) faculty