Frederick Apthorp Paley

Frederick Apthorp Paley (January 14, 1815 - December 8, 1888), was an English classical scholar.

Born at Easingwold in Yorkshire, he was the grandson of William Paley, and was educated at Shrewsbury school and St John's College, Cambridge (B.A. 1838). His conversion to Roman Catholicism forced him to leave Cambridge in 1846, but he returned in 1860 and resumed his work as "coach," until in 1874 he was appointed professor of classical literature at the newly founded Roman Catholic University at Kensington. This institution was closed in 1877 for lack of funds, and Paley removed to Boscombe, where he died.

His most important editions are:

• Aeschylus, with Latin notes (1844-1847), the work by which he first attracted attention
• Aeschylus (4th ed., 1879)
• Euripides (2nd ed., 1872)
• Hesiod (2nd ed., 1883)
• Homer's Iliad (2nd ed., 1884)
• Sophocles' Philoctetes, Electra, Trachiniae, Ajax (1880)--all with English commentary and forming part of the Bibliotheca classica
• select private orations of Demosthenes (3rd ed., 1896-1898)
• Theocritus (2nd ed., 1869), with brief Latin notes, one of the best of his minor works

He possessed considerable knowledge of architecture, and published a Manual of Gothic Architecture (1846) and Manual of Gothic Mouldings (6th ed., 1902).

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.