Mary Beard

Born

in Much Wenlock, The United Kingdom

January 01, 1955

Genre

See also: Mary Ritter Beard (1876-1958).

Winifred Mary Beard (born 1 January 1955) is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog "A Don's Life", which appears on The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist".

Mary Beard, an only child, was born on 1 January 1955 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Her father, Roy Whitbread Beard, worked as an architect in Shrewsbury. She recalled him as "a raffish public-schoolboy type and a complete wastrel, but very engaging". Her mother Joyce Emily Beard wa See also: Mary Ritter Beard (1876-1958).

Winifred Mary Beard (born 1 January 1955) is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog "A Don's Life", which appears on The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist".

Mary Beard, an only child, was born on 1 January 1955 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Her father, Roy Whitbread Beard, worked as an architect in Shrewsbury. She recalled him as "a raffish public-schoolboy type and a complete wastrel, but very engaging". Her mother Joyce Emily Beard was a headmistress and an enthusiastic reader.

Mary Beard attended an all-female direct grant school. During the summer she participated in archaeological excavations; this was initially to earn money for recreational spending, but she began to find the study of antiquity unexpectedly interesting. But it was not all that interested the young Beard. She had friends in many age groups, and a number of trangressions: "Playing around with other people's husbands when you were 17 was bad news. Yes, I was a very naughty girl."

At the age of 18 she was interviewed for a place at Newnham College, Cambridge and sat the then compulsory entrance exam. She had thought of going to King's, but rejected it when she discovered the college did not offer scholarships to women. Although studying at a single-sex college, she found in her first year that some men in the University held dismissive attitudes towards women's academic potential, and this strengthened her determination to succeed. She also developed feminist views that remained "hugely important" in her later life, although she later described "modern orthodox feminism" as partly "cant". Beard received an MA at Newnham and remained in Cambridge for her PhD.

From 1979 to 1983 she lectured in Classics at King's College London. She returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a fellow of Newnham College and the only female lecturer in the Classics faculty. Rome in the Late Republic, which she co-wrote with the Cambridge ancient historian Michael Crawford, was published the same year. In 1985 Beard married Robin Sinclair Cormack. She had a daughter in 1985 and a son in 1987. Beard became Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement in 1992.

Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Beard was one of several authors invited to contribute articles on the topic to the London Review of Books. She opined that many people, once "the shock had faded", thought "the United States had it coming", and that "[w]orld bullies, even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price".[4] In a November 2007 interview, she stated that the hostility these comments provoked had still not subsided, although she believed it had become a standard viewpoint that terrorism was associated with American foreign policy.[1]

In 2004, Beard became the Professor of Classics at Cambridge.[3] She is also the Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature for 2008–2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has delivered a series of lectures on "Roman Laughter".[5] ...more

779 posts
Mary Beard's Blog

Mary Beard isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Grenfell Tower and the Fire of Rome

There was a good episode of The Long View on Radio 4 last week, looking at a terrible fire in Glasgow in 1905 as a ghastly parallel of the Grenfell Tower. But I couldn��t help thinking also of a much more distant fire, and the blame game around it that has lasted for centuries: the great fire of Rome in 64 CE.

We now know it best through the phrase ��Nero fiddled while Rome burned�� or...

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Mary Beard’s books

Average rating: 4.02 · 16,405 ratings · 1,879 reviews · 38 distinct works • Similar authors

	S.P.Q.R: A History of Ancient Rome 4.10 avg rating — 11,053 ratings — published 2015 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found 4.05 avg rating — 1,568 ratings — published 2008 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations 3.68 avg rating — 932 ratings — published 2013 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Classics: A Very Short Introduction by Mary Beard, John Henderson 3.58 avg rating — 563 ratings — published 1995 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Parthenon 3.94 avg rating — 273 ratings — published 2002 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Roman Triumph 3.94 avg rating — 157 ratings — published 2007 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Classical Art: From Greece to Rome by Mary Beard, John Henderson 4.06 avg rating — 140 ratings — published 2001 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	It's a Don's Life 3.80 avg rating — 162 ratings — published 2009 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rome in the Late Republic by Mary Beard, Michael Hewson Crawford 3.82 avg rating — 100 ratings — published 1985 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Religions of Rome, Volume 1: A History by Mary Beard, John North, Simon Price 4.13 avg rating — 95 ratings — published 1998 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Mary Beard

Religions of Rome (2 books)
by Mary Beard, John North, Simon Price
4.06 avg rating — 158 ratings

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Quotes by Mary Beard

“It is a dangerous myth that we are better historians than our predecessors. We are not.”
― Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

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“Caesar quoted in Greek two words from the Athenian comic playwright Menander: literally, in a phrase borrowed from gambling, ‘Let the dice be thrown.’ Despite the usual English translation – ‘The die is cast’, which again appears to hint at the irrevocable step being taken – Caesar’s Greek was much more an expression of uncertainty, a sense that everything now was in the lap of the gods. Let’s throw the dice in the air and see where they will fall! Who knows what will happen next?”
― Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

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“In extending citizenship to people who had no direct territorial connections with the city of Rome, they broke the link, which most people in the classical world took for granted, between citizenship and a single city. In a systematic way that was then unparalleled, they made it possible not just to become Roman but also to be a citizen of two places at once: one’s home town and Rome.”
― Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

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Polls

What book should we read in April as our Literary Prize selection?

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

4 votes, 33.3%

Arvida by Samuel Archibald

3 votes, 25.0%

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

3 votes, 25.0%

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder

2 votes, 16.7%

12 total votes

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The History Book ...: BIBLIOGRAPHY - RUBICON (SPOILER THREAD)	48	58	Dec 12, 2014 12:42PM
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779 posts
Mary Beard's Blog

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Mary Beard’s Followers (615)

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Mary Beard

779 postsMary Beard's Blog

Combine EditionsMary Beard’s books

Series by Mary Beard

Upcoming Events

Quotes by Mary Beard

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

779 posts
Mary Beard's Blog

Combine Editions
Mary Beard’s books