"Letters of Abelard and Heloise" has a beautiful glossy cover and a blank page for the dedication. "It is very surprising that the Letters of Abelard and Heloise have not sooner appeared in English, since it is generally allowed, by all who have seen them in other languages, that they are written with the greatest passion of any in this kind which are extant. And it is certain that the Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier, which have so long been known and admired among us, are in all respects inferior to them. Whatever those were, these are known to be genuine Pieces occasioned by an amour which had very extraordinary consequences, and made a great noise at the time when it happened, being between two of the most distinguished Persons of that age."
Peter Abelard (1079 1142) was the greatest logician of the twelfth century. He taught in Paris, where Heloise (1101 1164) was his pupil when they met.
For generations,
Heloise has been the name in household advice. Continuing in the tradition of her mother, the original Heloise, today's Heloise has become a media phenomenon. Along with her numerous television appearances and worldwide syndicated newspaper column, she has a monthly feature in
Good Housekeeping, and her own website. Heloise is the author of several bestselling books.
M. T. Clanchy researches at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London.
M. T. Clanchy researches at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London.
Betty Radice read classics at Oxford, then married and, in the intervals of bringing up a family, tutored in classics, philosophy and English. She became joint editor of the Penguin Classics in 1964. As well as editing the translation of Livy s
The War with Hannibal she translated Livy s
Rome and Italy, Pliny s Letters,
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise and Erasmus s
Praise of Folly, and also wrote the introduction to Horace s
Complete Odes and Epodes, all for the Penguin Classics. She also edited Edward Gibbon s
Memoirs of My Life for the Penguin English Library, and edited and annotated her translation of the younger Pliny s works for the Loeb Library of Classics and translated from Renaissance Latin, Greek and Italian for the Officina Bodoni of Verona. She collaborated as a translator in the Collected Works of Erasmus, and was the author of the Penguin Reference Book
Who s Who in the Ancient World. Betty Radice was an honorary fellow of St Hilda s College, Oxford, and a vice-president of the Classical Association. Betty Radice died in 1985.
