|
UCD Press is completing publication of its four-volume edition of The Letters of Peter le Page Renouf, 1822-97, edited by Kevin J. Cathcart, Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Languages, University College Dublin, to coincide with the 150th anniversary celebrations of the founding of UCD. Peter le Page Renouf was appointed by John Henry Newman to a lectureship in French literature at the new Catholic University (later to become University College Dublin) in 1854. He was subsequently appointed Professor of Ancient History and Oriental Languages and remained for ten years in Dublin. The third volume of letters cover his time in Dublin.
Sir Peter le Page Renouf (1822-97) was described by Lord Acton as 'the most learned Englishman I know'. The remarkable collection of his surviving letters, in four volumes, covers his varied career from his days as a student in Oxford until after his retirement as Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum.
Renouf was born and brought up in Guernsey. While studying theology at Pembroke College, Oxford, he came to sympathise with the Oxford Movement and on his conversion to Catholicism in March 1842 moved to St Mary's College, Oscott, to continue his studies. Four years later he went to France to serve as tutor to the son of the Comte de Vaulchier at Besançon, and in 1854 he moved to Ireland at the invitation of John Henry Newman to take up an academic post at the new Catholic University in Dublin, where he first taught French literature and later became Professor of Ancient History and Oriental Languages. He began to teach himself the ancient Egyptian language and soon became one of the few scholars in Britain or Ireland competent to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. He moved back to England in 1864, and for a time was an Inspector of Schools before being appointed to the British Museum. An outstanding scholar, he continued his research in retirement, publishing much of his translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Renouf was knighted in 1896 in recognition of his long and valuable service to the British Museum.
Volume 1 1840-1846 Oxford and Oscott
1-900621-65-7
The letters in volume 1 cover the early years of Renouf's life, including his time as an undergraduate at Oxford, and as a tutor at Oscott. They include much colourful chitchat about fellow students and teachers; but they also reveal the reaction of a clever and serious young undergraduate to the intellectual and spiritual excitement of the Oxford Movement. Renouf had already published a theological pamphlet in his nineteenth year. The study of Arabic, Ethiopic, Hebrew and Syriac would influence his future career more profoundly than he could possibly have guessed in these early years. At Oxford and Oscott he came in contact with many prominent Victorians, including Newman, Frederick William Faber, Pugin, Pusey, Wiseman, Lord John Manners, and Ambrose Lisle Phillipps.
Volume 2 1846-54 Besançon
1-900621-75-4
The second volume contains the letters which Renouf wrote to his family in Guernsey when he was tutor to Louis Anne de Vaulchier, the only child of Comte Louis de Vaulchier, at Besançon and the Château de Deschaux near Dole in France. The letters are replete with interesting accounts of daily life, travels in Franch and Switzerland, and political events during the turbulent years of the Second Republic in 1848-51. Renouf and his pupil lived in Geneva for eight months in 1852-3. There are important letters to and from John Henry Newman concerning Renouf's appointment to an academic post at the new Catholic University in Dublin.
Volume 3 1854-64 Dublin
1-900621-90-8
This covers the period of Renouf's academic posts at the Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin. He quickly established a fine reputation as an Egyptologist. In 1857 he married Ludovica Brentano of Aschaffenburg, Germany, niece of the poet Clemens Brentano, and they started a family. Renouf was one of the editors of The Atlantis, the university's own journal, and he also helped Sir John Dalberg Acton with the editing of the Home and Foreign Review. The letters, which include the extensive correspondence with Acton, are replete with interesting accounts of life in nineteenth-century Dublin. They also provide important information about the Catholic University during the first decade of its existence.
Volume 4 1864-97 London
1-904558-03-8
This fourth and final volume covers Renouf's life in London from 1864 until his death in 1897. For 22 years he worked as an Inspector of Schools, mostly in the London district of Tower Hamlets. He kept up his research in Egyptology and many letters from his academic colleagues on the Continent have been preserved. The family correspondence provides some glimpses of the unhappy relationship which Peter and Ludovica Renouf had with their son Louis. In 1886 Renouf's life changed dramatically when he was appointed Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum. Five years later, a new civil service directive concerning retirement at the age of 65 led to the sudden end of his career. The Trustees of the British Museum ignored protests from many distinguished Egyptologists against their decision to insist that Renouf should retire. Efforts to have his grievances addressed failed. Renouf's bitterness toward his former assistant and eventual successor, Ernest A. Wallis Budge, pervades the letters in the final years of his life
|
