Called "our British Minerva" by Samuel Richardson and "daughter to Plato" by Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Carter was for her contemporaries a symbol of the ideal classicist. Her translation of works by the Greek Stoic Philosopher Epictetus (1758), which went through three editions in her lifetime, was long the standard English text. In 1910 J. M. Dent and Sons published Carter's Epictetus in the Everyman's Library series; the firm reprinted the volume thirteen times, the last in 1966. In the eighteenth century Carter's reputation was such that Queen Charlotte requested an interview with the scholar-poet; and within the circles of the London intelligentsia, particularly at the salon gatherings of the Bluestockings, Carter held a place of honor for her vast knowledge of Greek and Latin classics. Her learning transcended traditional gender lines: a contemporary described her as "not only the most learned Woman of any age but one of the most learned...