Marjory Scott Wardrop was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 scholar and translator of Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 literature. She was a sister of the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 diplomat and scholar of Georgia, Sir Oliver Wardrop.

Fluent in seven foreign languages, she also learned Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

 and traveled to Georgia (then part of Imperial Russia) in 1894-5 and 1896. She translated and published Georgian Folk Tales (London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, 1894), The Hermit by Ilia Chavchavadze (London, 1895), The Life of St. Nino (Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, 1900), etc. She also made the first English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 prosaic translation of The Knight in the Panther's Skin

The Knight in the Panther's Skin

The Knight in the Panther's Skin is an epic poem, consisting of over 1600 shairi quatrains, was written in the 12th century by the Georgian epic-poet Shota Rustaveli, who was a Prince and Treasurer at the royal court of Queen Tamar of Georgia. The Knight in the Panther's Skin is often seen as...

, a medieval Georgian epic poem by Shota Rustaveli

Shota Rustaveli

Shota Rustaveli was a Georgian poet of the 12th century, and one of the greatest contributors to Georgian literature. He is author of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" , the Georgian national epic poem....

 (published by Oliver Wardrop in London, 1912). After her death, Sir Oliver created the Marjory Wardrop Fund at Oxford University "for the encouragement of the study of the language, literature, and history of Georgia

Kartvelian studies

The Kartvelian studies, or Kartvelology is a field of humanities covering Kartvelian history, languages, religion and/or culture....

, in Transcaucasia."

External links

• Marjory Wardrop. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Georgian Folk Tales, by Marjory Wardrop [1894], at sacred-texts.com.
• The Knight in the Panther’s Skin., by Marjory Wardrop [1978 edition], at National Parliamentary Library of Georgia.

Further Reading