William Allan Neilson
Born	(1869-03-28)28 March 1869 Doune, Perthshire, Scotland
Died	13 February 1946(1946-02-13) (aged 76) Northampton, Massachusetts, United States
Occupations	Educator, writer, lexicographer and college president
Board member of	G.C. Merriam and Co., NAACP, National Refugee Service
Spouse	Elisabeth Muser
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh, Harvard University
Academic work
Discipline	English
Institutions	Bryn Mawr College, Harvard University, Columbia University, Smith College
Notable works	The Facts about Shakespeare
Signature
Notes
[1]

William Allan Neilson (28 March 1869 – 13 February 1946) was an American educator, writer and lexicographer, graduated in the University of Edinburgh in 1891 and became a PhD in Harvard University in 1898. He was president of Smith College between 1917 and 1939.

Biography

Neilson was born in Doune, Scotland on 28 March 1869.^[2] He emigrated to the United States in 1895, being naturalised 3 August 1905. He taught at Bryn Mawr College from 1898 to 1900, Harvard from 1900 to 1904, Columbia from 1904 to 1906, and Harvard again from 1906 to 1917. He served as President of Smith College from 1917 to 1939. Neilson was author of a number of critical works on William Shakespeare, Robert Burns and the Elizabethan theatre, editor of the Cambridge and Tudor editions of Shakespeare (1906, 1911) and editor of Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1934).^[3] Less known is his translation of the famous late 14th-century Middle English alliterative chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Neilson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1914 and the American Philosophical Society in 1944.^[4][5]

He died at the Smith College infirmary in Northampton, Massachusetts on 13 February 1946.^[2]

Works

• The Origins and Sources of the "Court of Love" (1899)
• Milton's Minor Poems (1909); 1919 edition
• Essentials of Poetry (1912)
• with Ashley Horace Thorndike: The Facts About Shakespeare (1913)
• Lectures on the Harvard Classics (1914)
• Robert Burns, Project Gutenberg books.google (1917)
• Sir Gawain And The Green Knight (transl. by William Allan Neilson) (1917)
• with Ashley Horace Thorndike: History of English Literature (1920)

References

Further reading

• Margaret Farrand Thorp, Neilson of Smith (1956)

External links

•  Works by or about William Allan Neilson at Wikisource
• Works by William Allan Neilson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about William Allan Neilson at the Internet Archive
• Works by William Allan Neilson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Allison Lockwood, "Making of a president: Smith College's William Allan Neilson," Daily Hampshire Gazette, 8 May 2010.
• William Allan Neilson personal papers Archived 4 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine at the Smith College Archives, Smith College Special Collections
• Office of President William Allan Neilson files at the Smith College Archives, Smith College Special Collections