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117-671: Hamilton's second career as an author began after she retired from the Bryn Mawr School in 1922. She was sixty-two years old when her first book, The Greek Way, was published in 1930. It was an immediate success and a featured selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1957. Hamilton's other notable works include The Roman Way (1932), The Prophets of Israel (1936), Mythology (1942), and The Echo of Greece (1957). Critics have acclaimed Hamilton's books for their lively interpretations of ancient cultures. She

234-436: A "rigorous" curriculum, successfully transitioned the girls school from its "mediocre beginnings into one of the foremost preparatory institutions in the country." Her insistence on offering challenging standards to the students and different options on school policies led to confrontations with Dean Thomas. As Hamilton became increasingly frustrated with the situation at the school, her health also declined. She retired in 1922 at

351-659: A Book of the Year award. In 2017, the club debuted its first ever television advertisement called "Monthly". The club has a tradition of focusing on debut and emerging writers, and is known for having helped launch the careers of some of the most acclaimed authors in American literary history. In 1926 (its first year in operation), the Club's first selection was Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner . It also featured, but did not select, Ernest Hemingway 's The Sun Also Rises in

468-571: A biography by Doris Fielding Reid, Edith Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait . Robert F. Kennedy quoted from Hamilton's translated works, "in what is perhaps his most memorable speech ", during a campaign rally on April 4, 1968, in Indianapolis , Indiana , as the news of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. spread. Kennedy quoted from memory several lines from Hamilton's translation of Aeschylus 's tragedy, Agamemnon , telling

585-430: A fair number of foreign women studying at the university. They were informed that women could attend lectures, but they were expected to remain "invisible" and would not be allowed to participate in discussions. According to Alice, "Edith was extremely disappointed with the lectures she attended." Although they were thorough, the lectures "lost sight of the beauty of literature by focusing on obscure grammatical points." As

702-526: A faster pace. It is characterised by greater use of prepositions, and word order that is closer to modern Romance languages, for example, while grammatically retaining more or less the same formal rules as Classical Latin. Ultimately, Latin diverged into a distinct written form, where the commonly spoken form was perceived as a separate language, for instance early French or Italian dialects, that could be transcribed differently. It took some time for these to be viewed as wholly different from Latin however. After

819-743: A few in German , Dutch , Norwegian , Danish and Swedish . Latin is still spoken in Vatican City, a city-state situated in Rome that is the seat of the Catholic Church . The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part, in substantial works or in fragments to be analyzed in philology . They are in part the subject matter of the field of classics . Their works were published in manuscript form before

936-404: A few. Famous and well regarded writers included Petrarch, Erasmus, Salutati , Celtis , George Buchanan and Thomas More . Non fiction works were long produced in many subjects, including the sciences, law, philosophy, historiography and theology. Famous examples include Isaac Newton 's Principia . Latin was also used as a convenient medium for translations of important works first written in

1053-539: A flat, unrhythmic voice with a mournful edge" and could recite from memory various passages of Aeschylus that Hamilton had translated. According to reviewers, Hamilton's The Prophets of Israel (1936) had similarities to her earlier books about Greeks and Romans by making the prophets' messages relevant to contemporary readers. She accomplishes this, according to one writer, by showing that "behind all great thought stands an individual mind, fired by passion and possessed of an eye that sees deeply into humanity." The views of

1170-503: A livelihood for herself and decided to become an educator. Edith was the oldest of five siblings that included three sisters ( Alice (1869–1970), Margaret (1871–1969), and Norah (1873–1945)) and a brother (Arthur "Quint" (1886–1967)), all of whom were accomplished in their respective fields. Edith became an educator and renowned author; Alice became a founder of industrial medicine; Margaret, like her older sister, Edith, became an educator and headmistress at Bryn Mawr School ; and Norah

1287-560: A native language, Medieval Latin was used across Western and Catholic Europe during the Middle Ages as a working and literary language from the 9th century to the Renaissance , which then developed a classicizing form, called Renaissance Latin . This was the basis for Neo-Latin which evolved during the early modern period . In these periods Latin was used productively and generally taught to be written and spoken, at least until

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1404-520: A new book led Scherman to create, along with Sackheim and Robert Haas (son of Kalman Haas ), the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1926. As Scherman explained it, the club itself would be a "standard brand". "It establishes itself as a sound selector of good books and sells by means of its own prestige. Thus, the prestige of each new title need not be built up before becoming acceptable," he explained later. After starting with 4,000 subscribers,

1521-447: A panel of judges, and members choose which book they would like to receive, similar to how the club originally operated when it began in 1926. Members can also discuss the books with fellow members in an online forum. In late 2015, in concert with the club's 90th year, the club announced a relaunch into its current iteration. Within two years, the club had grown its membership to more than 100,000 members, primarily millennial women, and

1638-537: A partner in a wholesale grocery business in Fort Wayne, but the partnership dissolved in 1885 and the business failure caused a financial loss for the family. Afterwards, Montgomery Hamilton retreated from public life. Edith's mother, Gertrude, who loved modern literature and spoke several languages, remained socially active in the community and had "wide cultural and intellectual interests." After her father's business failed, Edith realized that she would need to provide

1755-567: A result, the list has variants, as well as alternative names. In addition to the historical phases, Ecclesiastical Latin refers to the styles used by the writers of the Roman Catholic Church from late antiquity onward, as well as by Protestant scholars. The earliest known form of Latin is Old Latin, also called Archaic or Early Latin, which was spoken from the Roman Kingdom , traditionally founded in 753 BC, through

1872-461: A result, they decided to enroll at the University of Munich , but it was not much of an improvement. Initially, it was uncertain whether Edith would be allowed to audit lectures, but she was granted permission to do so, albeit under trying conditions. According to Alice, when Edith arrived at her first class, she was escorted to the lecture platform and seated in a chair beside the lecturer, facing

1989-519: A scholarly man of leisure, was one of Allen and Emerine (Holman) Hamilton's eleven children; however, only five of the siblings lived. Her father attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School and also studied in Germany . Montgomery met Gertrude Pond, the daughter of a wealthy Wall Street broker and sugar importer, while living in Germany. They were married in 1866. Montgomery Hamilton became

2106-407: A separate language, existing more or less in parallel with the literary or educated Latin, but this is now widely dismissed. The term 'Vulgar Latin' remains difficult to define, referring both to informal speech at any time within the history of Latin, and the kind of informal Latin that had begun to move away from the written language significantly in the post-Imperial period, that led ultimately to

2223-709: A small number of Latin services held in the Anglican church. These include an annual service in Oxford, delivered with a Latin sermon; a relic from the period when Latin was the normal spoken language of the university. In the Western world, many organizations, governments and schools use Latin for their mottos due to its association with formality, tradition, and the roots of Western culture . Canada's motto A mari usque ad mare ("from sea to sea") and most provincial mottos are also in Latin. The Canadian Victoria Cross

2340-429: A sort of informal language academy dedicated to maintaining and perpetuating educated speech. Philological analysis of Archaic Latin works, such as those of Plautus , which contain fragments of everyday speech, gives evidence of an informal register of the language, Vulgar Latin (termed sermo vulgi , "the speech of the masses", by Cicero ). Some linguists, particularly in the nineteenth century, believed this to be

2457-572: A spoken and written language by the scholarship by the Renaissance humanists . Petrarch and others began to change their usage of Latin as they explored the texts of the Classical Latin world. Skills of textual criticism evolved to create much more accurate versions of extant texts through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and some important texts were rediscovered. Comprehensive versions of authors' works were published by Isaac Casaubon , Joseph Scaliger and others. Nevertheless, despite

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2574-432: A strictly left-to-right script. During the late republic and into the first years of the empire, from about 75 BC to AD 200, a new Classical Latin arose, a conscious creation of the orators, poets, historians and other literate men, who wrote the great works of classical literature , which were taught in grammar and rhetoric schools. Today's instructional grammars trace their roots to such schools , which served as

2691-693: A vernacular, such as those of Descartes . Latin education underwent a process of reform to classicise written and spoken Latin. Schooling remained largely Latin medium until approximately 1700. Until the end of the 17th century, the majority of books and almost all diplomatic documents were written in Latin. Afterwards, most diplomatic documents were written in French (a Romance language ) and later native or other languages. Education methods gradually shifted towards written Latin, and eventually concentrating solely on reading skills. The decline of Latin education took several centuries and proceeded much more slowly than

2808-606: A wide readership and for "representing the Greeks in particular as a prestigious source of cultural inspiration for American society during the decade before and the two decades after World War II ." Although Hamilton's reputation as an author is closely tied to her writings about Greece, much of her professional life focused on Latin. Hamilton "claimed special expertise in Greek," but after her graduation from Bryn Mawr College, where she majored in Greek and Latin, she spent another year at

2925-411: Is Veritas ("truth"). Veritas was the goddess of truth, a daughter of Saturn, and the mother of Virtue. Switzerland has adopted the country's Latin short name Helvetia on coins and stamps, since there is no room to use all of the nation's four official languages . For a similar reason, it adopted the international vehicle and internet code CH , which stands for Confoederatio Helvetica ,

3042-897: Is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages . Latin was originally spoken by the Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio ), the lower Tiber area around Rome , Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire . By the late Roman Republic , Old Latin had evolved into standardized Classical Latin . Vulgar Latin refers to

3159-640: Is a reversal of the original phrase Non terrae plus ultra ("No land further beyond", "No further!"). According to legend , this phrase was inscribed as a warning on the Pillars of Hercules , the rocks on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and the western end of the known, Mediterranean world. Charles adopted the motto following the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and it also has metaphorical suggestions of taking risks and striving for excellence. In

3276-483: Is described as the classical scholar who "brought into clear and brilliant focus the Golden Age of Greek life and thought ... with Homeric power and simplicity in her style of writing". Her works are said to influence modern lives through a "realization of the refuge and strength in the past" to those "in the troubled present." Hamilton's younger sister was Alice Hamilton , an expert in industrial toxicology and

3393-552: Is found in any widespread language, the languages of Spain, France, Portugal, and Italy have retained a remarkable unity in phonological forms and developments, bolstered by the stabilising influence of their common Christian (Roman Catholic) culture. It was not until the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711, cutting off communications between the major Romance regions, that the languages began to diverge seriously. The spoken Latin that would later become Romanian diverged somewhat more from

3510-689: Is modelled after the British Victoria Cross which has the inscription "For Valour". Because Canada is officially bilingual, the Canadian medal has replaced the English inscription with the Latin Pro Valore . Spain's motto Plus ultra , meaning "even further", or figuratively "Further!", is also Latin in origin. It is taken from the personal motto of Charles V , Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain (as Charles I), and

3627-956: Is taught at many high schools, especially in Europe and the Americas. It is most common in British public schools and grammar schools, the Italian liceo classico and liceo scientifico , the German Humanistisches Gymnasium and the Dutch gymnasium . Occasionally, some media outlets, targeting enthusiasts, broadcast in Latin. Notable examples include Radio Bremen in Germany, YLE radio in Finland (the Nuntii Latini broadcast from 1989 until it

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3744-543: The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy . About 270,000 inscriptions are known. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. In

3861-639: The Book of the Month News . In 1936, (its tenth year), the Club selected Gone with the Wind by unknown author Margaret Mitchell . Mitchell wrote: "I wanted to thank [Book of the Month] from the bottom of my heart for selecting my book. It was quite the most exciting and unexpected thing that ever happened to me." John Steinbeck 's Of Mice and Men was selected the following year in 1937. In 1951 (its 25th year),

3978-583: The Holy See , the primary language of its public journal , the Acta Apostolicae Sedis , and the working language of the Roman Rota . Vatican City is also home to the world's only automatic teller machine that gives instructions in Latin. In the pontifical universities postgraduate courses of Canon law are taught in Latin, and papers are written in the same language. There are

4095-574: The Middle Ages , borrowing from Latin occurred from ecclesiastical usage established by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century or indirectly after the Norman Conquest , through the Anglo-Norman language . From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed " inkhorn terms ", as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by

4212-576: The Roman Rite of the Catholic Church at the Vatican City . The church continues to adapt concepts from modern languages to Ecclesiastical Latin of the Latin language. Contemporary Latin is more often studied to be read rather than spoken or actively used. Latin has greatly influenced the English language , along with a large number of others, and historically contributed many words to

4329-569: The Romance languages . During the Classical period, informal language was rarely written, so philologists have been left with only individual words and phrases cited by classical authors, inscriptions such as Curse tablets and those found as graffiti . In the Late Latin period, language changes reflecting spoken (non-classical) norms tend to be found in greater quantities in texts. As it

4446-486: The United States Information Agency (USIA) and one of the speakers at the award ceremony, remarked that her interpretation of the democratic spirit of ancient Greece, defined "the fundamental of the democratic ideal itself." He also noted that USIA included seven of her books in its overseas libraries in order to help people of other countries interpret American ideals. She is the subject of

4563-636: The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 and Germanic kingdoms took its place, the Germanic people adopted Latin as a language more suitable for legal and other, more formal uses. While the written form of Latin was increasingly standardized into a fixed form, the spoken forms began to diverge more greatly. Currently, the five most widely spoken Romance languages by number of native speakers are Spanish , Portuguese , French , Italian , and Romanian . Despite dialectal variation, which

4680-439: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc. merged with Doubleday Direct, Inc. The resulting company, Bookspan , was a joint venture between Time Warner and Bertelsmann until 2007 when Bertelsmann took over complete ownership. In 2008, Bertelsmann sold its US subscription business to the private equity firm Najafi Companies . In 2013, Najafi sold Bookspan to current parent company Pride Tree Holdings, Inc. After relaunching in 2015, under

4797-637: The British Crown. The motto is featured on all presently minted coinage and has been featured in most coinage throughout the nation's history. Several states of the United States have Latin mottos , such as: Many military organizations today have Latin mottos, such as: Some law governing bodies in the Philippines have Latin mottos, such as: Some colleges and universities have adopted Latin mottos, for example Harvard University 's motto

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4914-722: The Club selected Babylon in 1978, it reached hundreds of thousands of additional readers and became an instant best-seller." Harry Scherman was a copywriter for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in 1916 when he set out to create the Little Leather Library . With his partners Max Sackheim, and Charles and Albert Boni , Scherman began a mail order service that offered "30 Great Books For $ 2.98" (miniature reprints "bound in limp Redcroft") and sold 40 million copies in its first five years. Sackheim and Scherman then founded their own ad agency devoted entirely to marketing books. The problems of building interest in

5031-613: The English lexicon , particularly after the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest . Latin and Ancient Greek roots are heavily used in English vocabulary in theology , the sciences , medicine , and law . A number of phases of the language have been recognized, each distinguished by subtle differences in vocabulary, usage, spelling, and syntax. There are no hard and fast rules of classification; different scholars emphasize different features. As

5148-599: The Grinch Stole Christmas! , The Cat in the Hat , and a book of fairy tales, " fabulae mirabiles ", are intended to garner popular interest in the language. Additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissner's Latin Phrasebook . Some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series,

5265-690: The Hamilton children French and had them tutored in German . In 1884 Edith began two years of study at Miss Porter's Finishing School for Young Ladies (now known as Miss Porter's School ) in Farmington, Connecticut , where attendance was a family tradition for the Hamilton women. Three of Hamilton's aunts, three cousins, and her three sisters attended the school. Hamilton returned to Indiana in 1886 and began four years of preparation prior to her acceptance at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , in 1891. She majored in Greek and Latin and

5382-616: The National Achievement Award in 1951 as a distinguished classical scholar and author. She received the award along with Anna M. Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense. The award was created in 1930 to honor women of accomplishment and inspire others. Hamilton was awarded the Golden Cross of the Order of Benefaction, Greece's highest honor, and became an honorary citizen of the city in 1957. In 1957 and 1958 she

5499-483: The Old Testament (Norton, 1949), supplied additional commentary on the first five books of the Old Testament. Christian Science historian Robert Peel described it as "a work of sheer delight." John Mason Brown , American drama critic, praised Hamilton's The Greek Way , placing it at the top among modern-day written about ancient Greece," and Mythology as "incomparably superior to Thomas Bulfinch 's work on

5616-753: The Ugly and Wonderful Things 2017 : John Boyne – The Heart's Invisible Furies 2018 : Madeline Miller – Circe 2019 : Taylor Jenkins Reid – Daisy Jones & the Six 2020 : Brit Bennett – The Vanishing Half 2021 : Kristin Hannah – The Four Winds 2022 : Gabrielle Zevin – Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow 2023 : Abby Jimenez - Yours Truly Latin Latin ( lingua Latina , pronounced [ˈlɪŋɡʷa ɫaˈtiːna] , or Latinum [ɫaˈtiːnʊ̃] )

5733-467: The United States the unofficial national motto until 1956 was E pluribus unum meaning "Out of many, one". The motto continues to be featured on the Great Seal . It also appears on the flags and seals of both houses of congress and the flags of the states of Michigan, North Dakota, New York, and Wisconsin. The motto's 13 letters symbolically represent the original Thirteen Colonies which revolted from

5850-570: The United States. In 1896 Hamilton became head administrator of Bryn Mawr School . Founded in 1885 as a college preparatory school for girls in Baltimore , Maryland , Bryn Mawr School was the country's only private high school for women that prepared all of its students for collegiate coursework. The school's students were required to pass Bryn Mawr College's entrance exam as a requirement for graduation. Although Hamilton never completed her doctorate, she did become an "inspiring and respected head of

5967-421: The United States. The bestseller drew comparisons between ancient Greece and modern-day life with essays about some of the great figures of Athenian history and literature. Critically praised for its "vivid and graceful prose," the book brought Hamilton immediate acclaim and established her reputation as a scholar. Biographer Robert Kanigel states that " The Greek Way renders the ancient Greek mind accessible to

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6084-563: The University of Kentucky, the University of Oxford and also Princeton University. There are many websites and forums maintained in Latin by enthusiasts. The Latin Misplaced Pages has more than 130,000 articles. Italian , French , Portuguese , Spanish , Romanian , Catalan , Romansh , Sardinian and other Romance languages are direct descendants of Latin. There are also many Latin borrowings in English and Albanian , as well as

6201-415: The achievements and personal lives of the prophets with those of twentieth-century readers. She concludes that the prophets were practical and their political views reflected their time, but their ideals were modern. Hamilton also summarized the importance of that connection to people in modern times: "Love and grief and joy remain the same forever beautiful" and "poetic truth is always true" as are truths of

6318-920: The age of eighty-two she offered new perspectives on the New Testament in Witness to the Truth: Christ and His Interpreters (1948) and produced a sequel to The Greek Way , titled The Echo of Greece (1957). The sequel to her first book discusses the political ideas of such teachers and leaders as Socrates , Plato , Aristotle , Demosthenes , and Alexander the Great . Hamilton continued traveling and lecturing in her eighties, and wrote articles, reviews, and translations of Greek plays, including The Trojan Women, Prometheus Bound, and Agamemnon. She also edited, with Huntington Cairns, The Collected Dialogues of Plato (1961). Doris Fielding Reid (1895–1973)

6435-421: The age of fifty-four, after twenty-six years of service to the school. After retiring as an educator in 1922 and moving to New York City in 1924, Hamilton began a second career as an author of essays and best-selling books on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. She had studied Greek and Latin from her youth and it remained her lifelong interest. "I came to the Greeks early," Hamilton told an interviewer when she

6552-531: The audience, "so that nobody would be contaminated by contact with her." Edith is quoted as saying, "the head of the University used to stare at me, then shake his head and say sadly to a colleague, 'There now, you see what's happened? We're right in the midst of the woman question.'" Hamilton intended to remain in Munich, Germany, to earn a doctoral degree, but her plans changed after Martha Carey Thomas , president of Bryn Mawr College, persuaded Hamilton to return to

6669-441: The award added a $ 10,000 prize, and the winner was The Heart's Invisible Furies by Irish author John Boyne . In 2018, the members voted Circe by Madeline Miller as best book of the year. In 2019, the members voted Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid as best book of the year. In 2020, the members voted The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett as best book of the year. 2016 : Bryn Greenwood – All

6786-425: The benefit of those who do not understand Latin. There are also songs written with Latin lyrics . The libretto for the opera-oratorio Oedipus rex by Igor Stravinsky is in Latin. Parts of Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana are written in Latin. Enya has recorded several tracks with Latin lyrics. The continued instruction of Latin is seen by some as a highly valuable component of a liberal arts education. Latin

6903-823: The book Edith Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait (1967). Reid died on January 15, 1973, in Manhattan. Both women are buried at Cove Cemetery in Hadlyme, Connecticut. Hamilton and Doris Reid remained in New York City until 1943, then moved to Washington, D.C. , and spent their summers in Maine. In Washington, Reid was in charge of the local offices of Loomis, Sayles and Company , an investment firm that had been her employer since 1929; Hamilton continued to write and frequently entertained friends, fellow writers, government representatives, and other dignitaries at her home. Among

7020-409: The careful work of Petrarch, Politian and others, first the demand for manuscripts, and then the rush to bring works into print, led to the circulation of inaccurate copies for several centuries following. Neo-Latin literature was extensive and prolific, but less well known or understood today. Works covered poetry, prose stories and early novels, occasional pieces and collections of letters, to name

7137-467: The city of Fort Wayne was built on land he once owned. The Hamilton family's large estate on a three-block area of downtown Fort Wayne included three homes. The family also built a home at Mackinac Island, Michigan , where they spent many of their summers. For the most part, the second and third generations of the extended Hamilton family, which included Edith's family, as well as her uncles, aunts, and cousins, lived on inherited wealth. Montgomery Hamilton,

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7254-410: The city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, erected statues of two Hamilton sisters, Edith and Alice, along with their cousin, Agnes, in the city's Headwaters Park. Book-of-the-Month Club Book of the Month (founded 1926 ) is a United States subscription -based e-commerce service that offers a selection of five to seven new hardcover books each month to its members. Books are selected and endorsed by

7371-461: The city. The US news media, including Time magazine, covered the event. An article in Publishers Weekly described the event in Hamilton's honor: floodlights illuminated the Parthenon , the Temple of Zeus and, for the first time in history, the Stoa . Hamilton called the ceremony "the proudest moment of my life." Many of the facts in The Greek Way (1930) have surprised modern readers. One reviewer in Australia explained Hamilton's view "that

7488-415: The classicised Latin that followed through to the present are often grouped together as Neo-Latin , or New Latin, which have in recent decades become a focus of renewed study , given their importance for the development of European culture, religion and science. The vast majority of written Latin belongs to this period, but its full extent is unknown. The Renaissance reinforced the position of Latin as

7605-418: The club distributed its 100 millionth book and selected J. D. Salinger 's The Catcher in the Rye , which became both the most-censored and the most-taught book in America. In 1978, the Club selected By the Rivers of Babylon , the first book by Nelson DeMille , who later wrote: "I will be forever grateful to Book of the Month for ensuring that my first book, By the Rivers of Babylon , was not my last. When

7722-401: The club had more than 550,000 within twenty years. The size of the club did in fact create the Book of the Month Club as a brand. Being a "Book of the Month Club" selection was used to promote books to the general public. Book of the Month Club was acquired by Time Inc. in 1977; Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications in 1989. The original judges panel was eliminated in 1994. In 2000,

7839-416: The club's presence on social media grew to over 1.2 million Instagram followers. Approximately 75% of the club's titles are by up-and-coming authors, and 80% of titles are fiction. The club has also worked with a series of celebrity guest judges who bring broader awareness to new titles, and continues producing its own versions of books that feature special endpapers and casings. In 2016, the club launched

7956-449: The college as a fellow in Latin and another year studying Latin in Germany. Hamilton also taught Latin to girls in the senior class during her 26-year career at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. However, with the exception of The Roman Way , Hamilton's written works primarily focused on fourth and fifth century BC Athens. Hamilton's correspondence and papers are held at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College . In 1906 Hamilton became

8073-412: The country's full Latin name. Some film and television in ancient settings, such as Sebastiane , The Passion of the Christ and Barbarians (2020 TV series) , have been made with dialogue in Latin. Occasionally, Latin dialogue is used because of its association with religion or philosophy, in such film/television series as The Exorcist and Lost (" Jughead "). Subtitles are usually shown for

8190-429: The decline in written Latin output. Despite having no native speakers, Latin is still used for a variety of purposes in the contemporary world. The largest organisation that retains Latin in official and quasi-official contexts is the Catholic Church . The Catholic Church required that Mass be carried out in Latin until the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965 , which permitted the use of the vernacular . Latin remains

8307-409: The early 1820s. Edith spent her youth among her extended family in Fort Wayne. Edith's grandfather, Allen Hamilton, was an Irish immigrant who came to Indiana in 1823 by way of Canada and settled in Fort Wayne. In 1828 he married Emerine Holman, the daughter of Indiana Supreme Court Justice Jesse Lynch Holman . Allen Hamilton became a successful Fort Wayne businessman and a land speculator. Much of

8424-589: The educated and official world, Latin continued without its natural spoken base. Moreover, this Latin spread into lands that had never spoken Latin, such as the Germanic and Slavic nations. It became useful for international communication between the member states of the Holy Roman Empire and its allies. Without the institutions of the Roman Empire that had supported its uniformity, Medieval Latin

8541-442: The eminent and famous were Isak Dinesen , Robert Frost , Harvard classicist Werner Jaeger and labor leader John L. Lewis . After her move to Washington, Hamilton became a commentator on education projects and began to receive honors for her work. Hamilton also recorded programs for television programs and Voice of America , traveled to Europe, and continued to write books, articles, essays, and book reviews. Hamilton considered

8658-651: The first headmistress of the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1950 Hamilton received an honorary degrees of Doctor of Letters from the University of Rochester and the University of Pennsylvania . She was also the recipient of an honorary degree from Yale University in 1960. In addition, Hamilton was elected to the American Institute of Arts and Letters in 1955 and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1957. Hamilton received

8775-530: The first of the book's twelve chapters, Hamilton described the differences between the West and the Eastern nations which preceded it. One book reviewer noted that the Greeks, which Hamilton considered the first Westerners, challenged Eastern ways that "remained the same throughout the ages, forever remote from all that is modern." Hamilton further suggested that the modern spirit of the West was "a Greek discovery, and

8892-530: The first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University . Edith Hamilton, the eldest child of American parents Gertrude Pond (1840–1917) and Montgomery Hamilton (1843–1909), was born on August 12, 1867, in Dresden , Germany . Shortly after her birth, the Hamilton family returned to the United States and made their home in Fort Wayne, Indiana , where Edith's grandfather, Allen Hamilton , had settled in

9009-487: The first woman to enroll at the University of Munich . In the fall of 1895 the Hamilton sisters departed for Germany, where Alice intended to continue her studies in pathology at the University of Leipzig and Edith planned to study the classics and attend lectures. At that time, most North American women, including Edith and Alice, registered as auditors for their classes. When the sisters arrived in Leipzig , they found

9126-517: The great thinkers of Athens of their mastery of truth and enlightenment." Her books later covered other areas of interest, especially from the Bible. In 1936, Hamilton wrote The Prophets of Israel (Norton, 1936), which interpreted the beliefs of the "spokesmen for God" in the Old Testament. With no knowledge of the Hebrew language, she relied on English language versions of the Bible to similarly compare

9243-423: The grief-stricken crowd: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." Kennedy also incorporated another line from Hamilton's writing, "her representation of an ancient Greek inscription" in his closing remarks to the crowd: "Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago––to tame

9360-523: The high point of her life to be a trip to Greece at age 90 in 1957, where, in Athens , she saw her translation of Aeschylus 's Prometheus Bound performed at the ancient Odeon theater of Herodes Atticus . As part of the evening's ceremonies, King Paul of Greece awarded the Golden Cross of the Order of Benefaction —one of Greece's highest honors—to her. The mayor of Athens made her an honorary citizen of

9477-703: The invention of printing and are now published in carefully annotated printed editions, such as the Loeb Classical Library , published by Harvard University Press , or the Oxford Classical Texts , published by Oxford University Press . Latin translations of modern literature such as: The Hobbit , Treasure Island , Robinson Crusoe , Paddington Bear , Winnie the Pooh , The Adventures of Tintin , Asterix , Harry Potter , Le Petit Prince , Max and Moritz , How

9594-704: The language of the Roman Rite . The Tridentine Mass (also known as the Extraordinary Form or Traditional Latin Mass) is celebrated in Latin. Although the Mass of Paul VI (also known as the Ordinary Form or the Novus Ordo) is usually celebrated in the local vernacular language, it can be and often is said in Latin, in part or in whole, especially at multilingual gatherings. It is the official language of

9711-440: The large areas where it had come to be natively spoken. However, even after the fall of Western Rome , Latin remained the common language of international communication , science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the early 19th century, by which time modern languages had supplanted it in common academic and political usage. Late Latin is the literary language from the 3rd century AD onward. No longer spoken as

9828-467: The late seventeenth century, when spoken skills began to erode. It then became increasingly taught only to be read. Latin grammar is highly fusional , with classes of inflections for case , number , person , gender , tense , mood , voice , and aspect . The Latin alphabet is directly derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets . Latin remains the official language of the Holy See and

9945-431: The later part of the Roman Republic , up to 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin . It is attested both in inscriptions and in some of the earliest extant Latin literary works, such as the comedies of Plautus and Terence . The Latin alphabet was devised from the Etruscan alphabet . The writing later changed from what was initially either a right-to-left or a boustrophedon script to what ultimately became

10062-469: The leadership of CEO John Lippman, Book of the Month hit revenue of $ 10 million in 2017 and in 2024, industry sources estimated current revenue of $ 50 million. The club operates a subscription program, similar to other box subscription services, where customers select a membership plan for a set period of time (3-months, 6-months or 12-months) and books are shipped to all members during the first seven days of

10179-421: The less prestigious colloquial registers , attested in inscriptions and some literary works such as those of the comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and the author Petronius . While often called a "dead language", Latin did not undergo language death . By the 6th to 9th centuries, natural language change eventually resulted in Latin as a vernacular language evolving into distinct Romance languages in

10296-510: The modern reader. It serves up a delectable appetizer of Greek civilization that leaves you begging for the rest of the meal. It is a work of popularization of the highest order." In Hamilton's view, Greek civilization at its peak represented a "flowering of the mind" that has yet to be equaled in the history of the world. The Greek Way showed that the Greeks recognized and appreciated such things as love, athletic games, love of knowledge, fine arts, and intelligent conversation. In "East and West,"

10413-406: The month. Historically, when the club operated through mail-order catalogs, membership involved a "negative response" system whereby a member was shipped the monthly selection on a particular date if the selection was not declined before that date. Members had the option to respond by declining the selection or opting to order another book or merchandise instead. No response was deemed acceptance of

10530-466: The other varieties, as it was largely separated from the unifying influences in the western part of the Empire. Spoken Latin began to diverge into distinct languages by the 9th century at the latest, when the earliest extant Romance writings begin to appear. They were, throughout the period, confined to everyday speech, as Medieval Latin was used for writing. For many Italians using Latin, though, there

10647-452: The place of the Greeks is in the modern world." More recent writers have used Hamilton's observations in contrasting the civilizations and cultures of the East with that of the West. In comparing ancient Egypt with Greece, for instance, Hamilton's writing describes the unique geography, climate, agriculture, and government. Historian James Golden cites from The Greek Way that "Egyptian society

10764-626: The prophets, it adds, are very similar to those in modern times: "The prophets were forerunners of three genuinely American movements— humanism , pragmatism and the philosophy of common sense." Hamilton died in Washington, D.C. on May 31, 1963, at the age of nearly 96. Four years after her death, Doris Fielding Reid published Edith Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait. Reid died on January 15, 1973. Both women are buried at Cove Cemetery in Hadlyme , Connecticut, where Hamilton's sisters had retired, in

10881-416: The qualities and styles of the ancient writers, she emulated their directness, strived for perfection, and did not include footnotes. Hamilton was sixty-two when her first book, The Greek Way , was published in 1930 and is considered by some as her most honored work. The successful book, which Hamilton wrote at the urging of Elling Annestad, an editor at W. W. Norton Company , made her a well-known author in

10998-485: The same cemetery as Hamilton's mother (Gertrude), sisters (Alice, Norah, and Margaret), and Margaret's life partner, Clara Landsberg. Hamilton's adopted son, Dorian, who had earned a degree in chemistry at Amherst College , died at West Lafayette, Indiana , in January 2008, aged 90. Hamilton was long recognized as a great classicist of her era. Her best-selling books were especially noteworthy for their accessibility to

11115-518: The savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." According to classicist Joseph Casazza, that line about "taming the savageness of man" was created by Hamilton herself and has no direct relation to a single ancient text. Based on his research, Casazza believes that the phrase is a combination of a line from a 125 B.C. decree about Athens by Delphi and another line from On the Character of Thucydides by Dionysius of Halicarnassus . In 2000

11232-414: The school" and was revered as an outstanding teacher of the classics, along with being an effective and successful administrator. She enhanced student life, maintained its high academic standards, and offered new ideas. Hamilton was unafraid to suggest new initiatives such as having her school's basketball team compete against another girls' team from a nearby boarding school. The proposed athletic competition

11349-499: The selection. In late 2016, the club announced its first annual Book of the Year Award, the finalists for which are chosen by the club's members. The award is called the "Lolly", in tribute to Lolly Willowes , the first book selected by the club back in 1926. Lolly Willowes was written by Sylvia Townsend Warner , who later went on to become a prolific writer and even wrote short stories for The New Yorker . In 2017,

11466-400: The series of books on ancient Greek and Roman life for which she is most noted. Hamilton went on to become America's most renowned classicist of her era. According to her biographer, Barbara Sicherman, Hamilton's life was "ruled by a passionately nonconformist vision" that was also the source of her "strength and vitality" as well as her "appeal as public figure and author." However, Hamilton

11583-465: The spirit of our age is a Greek discovery, and that the Greeks were really the first Westerners, and the first intellectualists." The same reviewer also credited the book with noting that modern concepts of play and sport were actually common activities to the Greeks, who engaged in exercise and athletic events, including games, races, and music, dancing, and wrestling competitions, among others. Among those whose lives were influenced by Hamilton's writings

11700-438: The spirit. "The prophets understand them as no men have more, and in their pages we can find ourselves. Our aspirations are there, our desires for humanity." American historian Bruce Catton noted the prophets, whose "religion was an affair of the workaday world," and their messages that Hamilton described in her "excellent book" are still as relevant today. A subsequent edition of the book, Spokesmen for God: The Great Teachers of

11817-502: The subject. Hamilton's Mythology (1942), recounts the stories of classical mythology and ancient fables. She used an approach to mythology that was entirely through the literature of the classics . (She had not traveled to Greece until 1929 and was not an archaeologist .) The book received favorable reviews, was another Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and had sold more than four and a half million copies by 1957. In 1942, after moving to Washington, D.C., Hamilton continued to write. At

11934-402: The twentieth century. She also suggested how Roman ideas applied to the modern world. Although her books were successful and popular among readers, she conceded "that it was hopeless to persuade Americans to be Greeks" and that "life had become far too complex since the age of Pericles to recapture the simple directness of Greek life ... the calm lucidity of the Greek mind, which convinced

12051-641: Was U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy . In the months after his brother, President John F. Kennedy , was assassinated, Robert was consumed with grief. Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave him a copy of The Greek Way, which she felt was certain to help him. Political commentator David Brooks reported that Hamilton's essays helped him better understand and then recover from his brother's tragic death. Hamilton's writings remained important to him over time, as Brooks explains, and changed Kennedy's life. "He carried his beaten, underlined and annotated copy around with him for years, reading sections aloud to audiences in

12168-622: Was an American stockbroker. She was the daughter of Harry Fielding Reid , an American geophysicist, and Edith Gittings Reid, biographer of Doctor William Osler and President Woodrow Wilson . She was a student of Edith Hamilton. Reid was employed by Loomis, Sayles and Company beginning in 1929. Reid and Hamilton became lifelong companions. They lived together in Gramercy Park , Manhattan and Sea Wall, Maine, during which time they raised and home-schooled Reid's nephew, Francis Dorian Fielding Reid (1917–2008). After Hamilton's death, Reid published

12285-460: Was an artist. Hamilton's youngest sibling, Arthur, was nineteen years her junior. He became a writer, professor of Spanish , and assistant dean for foreign students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . Arthur was the only sibling to marry; he and his wife, Mary Neal (d. 1965), had no children. Because Edith's parents disliked the public school system's curriculum, they taught their children at home. As she once described him, "My father

12402-521: Was awarded a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts degree in 1894. Hamilton spent the year after her graduation as a fellow in Latin at Bryn Mawr College and was awarded the Mary E. Garrett European Fellowship, the college's highest honor. The cash award from Bryn Mawr provided funds to enable Edith and Alice, who had completed her medical degree at the University of Michigan in 1893, to pursue further studies in Germany for an academic year. Hamilton became

12519-442: Was considered a scandalous suggestion for the time because news coverage would include the names of the participants. After Hamilton convinced the local press not to cover the event, the games proceeded and it became an annual tradition. In 1906, Hamilton's accomplishments as an educator and administrator were recognized when she was named the first headmistress in the school's history. Hamilton, who believed in providing students with

12636-413: Was free to develop on its own, there is no reason to suppose that the speech was uniform either diachronically or geographically. On the contrary, Romanised European populations developed their own dialects of the language, which eventually led to the differentiation of Romance languages . Late Latin is a kind of written Latin used in the 3rd to 6th centuries. This began to diverge from Classical forms at

12753-561: Was interviewed by NBC television, and in 1957 The Greek Way and The Roman Way were selected by the Book of the Month Club as summer readings. John F. Kennedy invited her to his inauguration, which she declined. He also sent an emissary to her home asking for advice about a new cultural center. In 1958 the Women's National Book Association awarded her for her contribution to American culture through books. George V. Allen , director of

12870-496: Was much more liberal in its linguistic cohesion: for example, in classical Latin sum and eram are used as auxiliary verbs in the perfect and pluperfect passive, which are compound tenses. Medieval Latin might use fui and fueram instead. Furthermore, the meanings of many words were changed and new words were introduced, often under influence from the vernacular. Identifiable individual styles of classically incorrect Latin prevail. Renaissance Latin, 1300 to 1500, and

12987-634: Was ninety-one, "and I found answers in them. Greece's great men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don't really act as if we believed in the soul's immortality and that's why we are where we are today." For more than fifty years her "love affair with Greece had smoldered without literary outlet". At the suggestion of Rosamund Gilder , editor of Theater Arts Monthly , Hamilton began by writing essays about Greek drama and comedies. Several of her early articles were published in Theater Arts Monthly before she began writing

13104-441: Was no complete separation between Italian and Latin, even into the beginning of the Renaissance . Petrarch for example saw Latin as a literary version of the spoken language. Medieval Latin is the written Latin in use during that portion of the post-classical period when no corresponding Latin vernacular existed, that is from around 700 to 1500 AD. The spoken language had developed into the various Romance languages; however, in

13221-417: Was not, and did not claim to be, a scholar. She did not attempt to present excessive detailed facts from the past. Instead, Hamilton focused on readability and uncovering "truths of the spirit," which she found from ancient writers. Drawing from Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and early Christian writings, Hamilton put into words what ancient people were like by concentrating on what they wrote about their own lives. Using

13338-540: Was preoccupied with death." Its pharaohs erected giant monuments to themselves to impress future generations and its priests advised the slaves to "look forward to an afterlife." Golden used Hamilton's research to contrast these differences with the Greeks, especially the Athenians. Hamilton argued that individual "perfection of mind and body" dominated Greek thought and as a result, the Greeks "excelled at philosophy and sports" and that life "in all its exuberant potential"

13455-482: Was shut down in June 2019), and Vatican Radio & Television, all of which broadcast news segments and other material in Latin. A variety of organisations, as well as informal Latin 'circuli' ('circles'), have been founded in more recent times to support the use of spoken Latin. Moreover, a number of university classics departments have begun incorporating communicative pedagogies in their Latin courses. These include

13572-402: Was the hallmark of Greek civilization. The Roman Way (1932), her second book, provided similar contrasts between ancient Rome and present-day life. It was also a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in 1957. Hamilton described life as it existed according to ancient Roman poets such as Plautus , Virgil and Juvenal , interpreted Roman thought and manners, and compared them to people's lives in

13689-416: Was well-to-do, but he wasn't interested in making money; he was interested in making people use their minds." Edith, who learned to read at an early age, became an excellent storyteller. Hamilton credited her father for guiding her towards studies of the classics; he began teaching her Latin when she was seven years old. Her father also introduced her to Greek language and literature, where her mother taught

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