Jane Ellen Harrison

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Classics scholar JEH devoted much of her career to radically unorthodox studies of the development of ritual and religion in early Greek culture. Her findings, issuing in both monographs and articles, were highly publicized and often controversial during her own time, but fell into neglect before receiving sharply increased attention from the late 1980s forward. As recent studies have demonstrated, it is difficult to overestimate the impact of Harrison's work on her specific scholarly field (Greek ritual, art, and myth), on women in academia, or on a range of creative writers. She also published a personal memoir.

Milestones

9 September 1850

JEH was born at Cottingham in Yorkshire.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
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Between 1868 and 1870

At some point during her studies at Cheltenham Ladies' College, JEH 's first printed literary effort appeared: Praying for Rain was published by the Religious Tract Society .
This is absent, however, from standard library catalogues.
Harrison, Jane Ellen. Reminiscences of a Student’s Life. Hogarth Press.
38
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
26, 32

1912

JEH published another landmark text (her best known work), Themis: A Study in the Social Origins of Greek Religion.
Briggs, Julia. “The Wives of Herr Bear”. London Review of Books, pp. 24-5.
25
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
310-11

15 April 1928

JEH died of leukaemia at 11 Mecklenburgh Street, London.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
304

Biography

Birth and Influences

9 September 1850

JEH was born at Cottingham in Yorkshire.
Robinson, Annabel. The Life and Work of Jane Ellen Harrison. Oxford University Press.
14