A. W. Verrall

He was noted for his translations and for his challenging, unorthodox interpretations of the Greek dramatists, such as his commentary on Agamemnon; his detractors found his readings contorted and too ingenious, too often overlooking obvious explanations in favour of the convoluted, and his published work is nowadays not highly regarded.

In February 1911, he was appointed to fill the new King Edward VII professorship of literature at Cambridge, which had been endowed by Harold Harmsworth.

His wife, a lecturer in classics at Newnham College, gained more fame through her psychic researches — an interest Arthur shared[4] — and as a medium.

Mother and daughter were among mediums involved in the Palm Sunday Case, in which messages from Mary Catherine Lyttleton (who died on 21 March 1875) were supposedly transmitted by automatic writing to her lover Arthur Balfour.

[6] He is buried at the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, with his wife and daughter, Phoebe Margaret De Gaudrion Verrall (1888-1890).