Alice Zimmern

Alice Louisa Theodora Zimmern (22 September 1855 – 22 March 1939) was an English writer, translator, and suffragist. Her books made a significant contribution to debate on the education and rights of women.

Early years and education

Zimmern was born at Postern Street, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire. She was the youngest of three daughters of the lace merchant Hermann Theodore Zimmern, a German Jewish immigrant, and his wife Antonia Marie Therese Regina Zimmern, née Leo, sister of Carl Leo, a syndic of Hamburg. The scholar and political scientist Alfred Eckhard Zimmern was one of her cousins.

Zimmern was educated at a private school and at Bedford College, London, before entering Girton College, Cambridge in 1881 to read Classics. Zimmern left Girton in 1885 with honours in both parts of the Cambridge classical tripos. In 1888–1894, she taught English and Classics at English girls' schools, including Tunbridge Wells High School (1888–1891). In addition to this, she translated Greek texts in order for them to be used by her students.

Career

While teaching, Zimmern produced a school edition of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in 1887, a translation of Hugo Bluemner's The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks (1893), and a translation of Porphyry: The Philosopher to his Wife Marcella (1896). She later wrote children's books on ancient Greece (Greek History for Young Readers, 1895, Old Tales from Greece, 1897) and Rome (Old Tales from Rome, 1906), all of which were reprinted several times. Greek History for Young Readers was still being praised in the Parents' Review six years later.