Rosemary Dorward
Translator of Middle English (1921 – 1998)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rosemary Dorward (née Birts, 1921 – 1998) was a British translator of Middle English mystical texts.
Birts served with the WRNS during World War II, achieving the rank of Third Officer in January 1944.[1][2]
She studied English Language and Literature as an Exhibition Scholar at St Hilda’s College, Oxford in 1945,[3] under Dorothy Everett, Helen Gardner, and Dorothy Whitelock. She received a B.Litt for her work towards an edition of fourteenth-century mystic Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, Book One, which had been started by Gardner.[4][5][6]
In 1951, she married forestry worker Frank Dorward, and they moved to Africa, living in Tanzania, Malawi, and Swaziland. During this time Rosemary worked as a secondary school teacher. They had three sons.[4][5]
She continued to work towards an edition of Scale of Perfection alongside Alan Bliss,[7] and it was finally published in 1991. When she returned from Africa to live in the Scottish Borders, she produced other translations of Hilton’s work: Eight Chapters on Perfection and Angels’ Songs (published 1983)[8] and Mixed Life (published posthumously in 2024).[4]