Vassar Again, 1897–1900

Drawing mainly on Edith’s Diaries, this chapter treats Edith’s three years as an instructor at Vassar College. All started well, not least Edith’s teaching. Yet for reasons that remain baffling, her head of Department, Laura Johnson Wylie (1855–1932), took against her. Edith decided that, helped by a loan from family friend Samuel Croxton (“Uncle Sam”), she would abandon academia and set up as a writer in London. But first she had to complete her Ph.D. In summer 1899 she accordingly went to Chicago to defend her dissertation, an edition of the Middle English romance, Emaré. She emerged Magna Cum Laude. She also emerged head over heels in love with the new head of the English Department, John Matthews Manly. She half-hoped that he would urge her to remain in the States. But he declared her English plan to be wise, if risky.