William Aldis Wright (1 August 183119 May 1914) was an English writer and classical scholar. He was best known for founding '' The Cambridge Shakespeare'' alongside writer William George Clark. Additionally, he was friends with poet Edward FitzGerald and published many of his works posthumously.

Life

Wright was son of George Wright, a Baptist minister in

Beccles Beccles ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . The town is located along the A145 r ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. He was educated at Beccles Grammar School and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, where he graduated BA in 1858. As a nonconformist, Wright was ineligible for election to a Trinity fellowship until 1878, but became Librarian and Senior Bursar of Trinity before that date. He opposed the allegations by Simonides that the ''

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...

'' discovered by

Constantin von Tischendorf Constantin is an Aromanian language, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian language, Megleno-Romanian and Romanian language, Romanian male given name. It can also be a surname. For a list of notable people called Constantin, see Constantine (name). See ...

was produced around 1840. Duly elected Fellow in 1878, he became vice-master of the college in 1888. He was one of the editors of the ''Journal of Philology'' from its foundation in 1868, and was secretary to the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

revision company from 1870 to 1885. He edited the plays of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

published in the "

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

" series (1868–97), also with W. G. Clark the "Cambridge" Shakespeare (1863–1866; 2nd ed. 1891–1893) and the "Globe" edition (1864). He added the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Index to 'The Survey of Western Palestine' in 1888. He published a facsimile of the Milton manuscript in the Trinity College library (1899), and edited Milton's poems with critical notes (1903). He was the intimate friend and

literary executor The literary estate of a deceased author consists mainly of the copyright and other intellectual property rights of published works, including film rights, film, translation rights, original manuscripts of published work, unpublished or partially ...

of Edward FitzGerald, whose ''Letters and Literary Remains'' he edited in 1889. This was followed by the ''Letters of Edward FitzGerald to

Fanny Kemble Frances Anne Kemble (later Butler; 27 November 180915 January 1893) was a British actress from a Kemble family, theatre family in the early and mid-nineteenth century. She was a well-known and popular writer and abolitionist whose published wor ...

'' (1895), his ''Miscellanies'' (1900), ''More Letters of Edward FitzGerald'' (1901), and ''The Works of Edward FitzGerald'' (7 vols., 1903). He edited the metrical chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (1887), '' Generydes'' (1878) for the

Early English Text Society The Early English Text Society (EETS) is a text publication society founded in 1864 which is dedicated to the editing and publication of early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes contain editions of ...

, ''Catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum'' (1–3 vol., 1870–1872), and other texts. His last publication was ''The Hexaplar Psalter'' (1911). In 1912 he resigned from the vice-mastership of Trinity College. He donated a large collection of engravings by his uncle Thomas Higham to the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in 1902. He is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.A Cambridge Necropolis by Dr.

Mark Goldie Mark Goldie is an English historian and Emeritus Professor of Intellectual History at Churchill College, Cambridge. He has written on the English political theorist John Locke and is a member of the Early Modern History and Political Thought and ...

, 2000

Religious publications

*
The Bible word-book; a glossary of archaic words and phrases in the authorised version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer
' (1884) * ''The Hexaplar Psalter: Being the Book of Psalms in Six English Versions''

References

Attribution: *

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, William Aldis 1831 births 1914 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge English book editors English librarians Burials in Cambridgeshire English philologists

Life

Religious publications

See also

References

External links