The Invention of Jane Harrison

Mary Beard

Mar 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Lucy Rayner

About this audiobook

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928) is the most famous female Classicist in history, the author of books that revolutionized our understanding of Greek culture and religion. A star in the British academic world, she became the quintessential Cambridge woman-as Virginia Woolf suggested when, in A Room of One's Own, she claims to have glimpsed Harrison's ghost in the college gardens. This lively and innovative portrayal of a fascinating woman raises the question of who wins (and how) in the competition for academic fame. Mary Beard captures Harrison's ability to create her own image. And she contrasts her story with that of Eugenie Sellers Strong, a younger contemporary and onetime intimate, the author of major work on Roman art, and once a glittering figure at the British School in Rome-but who lost the race for renown. The setting for the story of Harrison's career is Classical scholarship in this period-its internal arguments and allegiances and especially the influence of the anthropological strain most strikingly exemplified by Sir James Frazer. Questioning the common criteria for identifying intellectual "influence" and "movements," Beard exposes the mythology that is embedded in the history of Classics. At the same time she provides a vivid picture of a sparkling intellectual scene. The Invention of Jane Harrison offers shrewd history and undiluted fun.

About the author

Mary Beard is a professor of classics at Cambridge University and the author of the bestselling SPQR, Women & Power, and the National Book Critics Circle Award-nominated Confronting the Classics. A popular blogger and television personality, Beard is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.

Lucy Rayner is an award-winning British actress who has worked on both sides of the Atlantic in a number of theater productions and films, many of which have screened at festivals around the world. She loves to tell stories and has narrated many wonderful audiobooks.