Papers and correspondence of John Armstrong Davison, mainly on Homeric topics

The papers include (1) material from his public school days at Haileybury; (2) fair copy lecture notes and some essays from his undergraduate career at Oxford; (3) notes and lectures from his later years as a university teacher; (4) some correspondence, including one batch of letters concerning the decipherment of the Linear B script

John Armstrong Davison (1906-1966) was professor of Greek language and literature at the University of Leeds from 1951 until his death in December 1966. He was educated at Haileybury and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1929. He immediately became assistant lecturer in Greek and Latin at Manchester, where he was promoted to a senior lectureship in 1950. He also held several visiting professorships in Canada and Germany. His first interest was the Greek lyric poets, but later he turned to Homeric studies. He wrote numerous articles and reviews in learned journals, and contributed to A Companion to Homer (1962), edited by A.J.B. Wace and F.H. Stubbings, namely chapters 6 and 7, respectively entitled "The transmission of the text" and "The Homeric question". His posthumously-published volume of essays, From Archilochus to Pindar (1968) completed his works

Access is unrestricted

The gift of Mrs Marjorie Davison, his widow

Mainly English

Contents listed in Handlist 44 and in the Letters database http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/letters/letintro.htm