William Romaine Newbold annotations in works of Greek and Latin literature, ca. 1892-1926.

Format:

Other

Author/Creator:

Newbold, William Romaine, 1865-1926.

Language:

English

Greek, Ancient (to 1453)

Latin

Syriac

Subjects (All):

Plato.

Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics.

Aristotle.

Philosophy, Ancient.

Pre-Socratic philosophers.

Apologetics--History--Early church, ca. 30-600.

Apologetics.

History.

Genre:

Annotations.

Manuscripts, American.

Penn Provenance:

Gift of William Romaine Newbold.

Physical Description:

6 boxes (13 items)

Place of Publication:

ca. 1892-1926.

Language Note:

Annotations primarily in English, with some Greek, Syriac, and Latin.

Biography/History:

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, William Romaine Newbold graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1887, and subsequently earned his Ph.D. there, in 1891, with a dissertation entitled: Prolegomena to a theory of belief; during his years of graduate study he was an instructor in Latin at the Cheltenham Military Academy. In 1891-1892 he studied abroad, mainly at the University of Berlin. Upon his return, he was a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1894. He served as dean of the Graduate School from 1896 to 1904. He was appointed a full professor of philosophy in 1903, and in 1907 was named the Adam Seybert Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, a position he held until his death. Newbold's wide-ranging scholarly interests included Greek philosophy; early Christianity; medieval philosophy and science; and the field of antiquities generally. In a famous instance, in 1921, he presented a theory for the decipherment of a coded text known as the Voynich Manuscript, which he believed to have been written by Roger Bacon; however, that analysis by Newbold was refuted in 1931.

Summary:

Annotations by William Romaine Newbold in the margins or in interleaved copies of published works of Greek and Latin literature, primarily philosophical texts. Included are two items with works by Plato, including Timaeus (Box 4, 5); two volumes of Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics (Box 3); and two collections edited by Hermann Diels of fragments from Pre-Socratic philosophers (Box 1). Other works are by Cicero (De natura deorum; Box 2), Lucretius (De rerum natura; Box 2), Plotinus (Enneads; Box 5), and Iamblichus (De mysteriis; Box 3), as well as Plutarch on the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris (Box 6), and a collection of Orphic texts (Box 6). Newbold's annotations are in English with some use of Greek and Latin; in the case of one volume that contains Christian apologetic texts by Aristides and Athenagoras (Box 1), the annotations include extensive passages in Syriac transcribed from the Spicilegium syriacum.

Finding Aid/Index:

For a list of the 13 individual items contained in this collection, do the following title search: William Romaine Newbold Annotations.

OCLC:

770297483