Spurgeon, Caroline F. E. (1869–1942)

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Spurgeon, Caroline F. E. (1869–1942)

English educator and writer. Born Caroline Frances Eleanor Spurgeon in Punjab, India, in 1869; died Oct 24, 1942; educated at Cheltenham College, England; Oxford University, BA, 1899.

An authority on Chaucer and Shakespeare, was a lecturer at England's Bedford College for Women (1901–06), head of its English literature department (1913–29); was a lecturer at the University of London (1906–13), before becoming the 1st woman to hold a professorship there (1913–29); while a visiting professor at Barnard College in NY (1920–21), helped organize the International Federation of University Women and became its 1st president (1920–24); major writings include Mysticism in English Literature (1913), Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion (1920–25), Keats's Shakespeare (1928) and Shakespeare's Imagery, and What It Tells Us (1935).