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Stephen L. Dyson, Eugénie Sellers Strong: Portrait of an Archaeologist. London: Duckworth, 2004. Pp. x, 244. illus. ISBN 0-7156-3219-1. £30.00.
More than half-a-century ago appeared Gladys Scott Thomson's Mrs Arthur Strong: a Memoir. The subject of this brief book was a famous scholar, a renowned personality and a major figure at the British School at Rome. That she would receive another biography was practically certain: aside from her own merits and significance, interest in gender studies, combined with Mary Beard's suggestive The Invention of Jane Harrison, insured that someone would soon enough turn to Eugénie Sellers Strong.
The author, Prof. Dyson, a former President of the Archaeological Institute of America, comes to his task with background both in Roman archaeology and in the history ofthat field. With respect to Mrs Strong, his research in archives is extensive. He has worked with the archives at Girton College, Cambridge; the British School, Rome; the Chatsworth Archives; the Berenson/Costelloe papers at the Harvard-I Tatti archives; and certain collections at Colby College, Harvard and Yale. It is not a serious fault that he does not know A. E. Housman's unpublished "Report of Committee of Senate on Applications for Professorship of Persian," which treats of the unsuccessful candidacy of Sellers's future husband (D.M.S. Watson Library, University College London [AM/D/51]).
The author's list of "Published Sources" is lengthy. It comprises over six hundred items (pp. 197-218). To these a few additions can be made: MAP (Mainly About People) 19, July 27, 1907, p. 99; Brian North Lee, The Bookplate Journal 5, March 1987, pp. 7-9; and The Cambridge Ritualists Reconsidered ed. W. M. Calder III, Atlanta 1991, pp. 148-149 n. 82. Two of Prof. Dyson's anonymous writers are identifiable from the Wellesley Index'. A. S. Murray wrote "Lost Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture" Quarterly Review 180, Jan. 1895 [not "1893"], pp. 61-87 (pp. 198, 224) and Percy Gardner "The Setting of a Greek Play" Q.R. 188, 1898, pp. 360-80 (p. 212).
Prof. Dyson cites about half of the works he lists. This remark is not meant to suggest that the other works are mere padding: they are not, and one readily sees why they appear in the list. But this practice leads one to the hope that Prof. Dyson is quietly attempting...