At her death in 1965, Helen Waddell's nephew, Mayne Waddell, wrote a letter to Helen's sister, Meg Waddell Martin, describing his aunt as "perhaps the greatest woman-scholar" of the early half of the twentieth century. Twenty-one years later, critic Molly Tibbs called her "the most distinguished woman of her generation." Waddell's work ranged from translations of poetry to plays, novels, short stories, and fairy tales. Perhaps her greatest contributions were her idiomatic translations of secular and religious Latin lyrics, from Virgil in 119 B.C. to John Milton in 1623. In addition, Waddell produced a distinguished study of medieval writers, especially those of the seventh to the twelfth centuries, the vagantes, or wandering scholars, men who left the monasteries and became teachers, poets, and entertainers. The best known of these scholars was Peter Abelard, a teacher, theologian, and independent thinker famous throughout medieval Europe. According to Waddell, whether major philosophers like...