Manly, John Matthews, 1865-1940

Professor of English, University of Chicago.

Reputedly, after John Matthew Manly (2 Sept. 1865-2 Apr. 1940) earned his PhD in Philogy he then attempted to read the entire holding of the Harvard library. A child prodigy, Manly graduated from Furman University with his masters when he was 18 years old. Getting his early education at the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia and the Greenville Military Institute in South Carolina, Manly earned his MA degree in mathematics in 1883. Just 19 years old he went to teach Mathematics at William Jewel College in Missouri for the next five years. Manly then proceeded to Harvard to earn the PhD (1890). The graduate program at Harvard didn't provide for the education that Manly sought so he collected Professors from many fields to proctor his Philology degree. During his examination he was interrogated by each professor separately. His colleague at the University of Chicago, Robert Morss Lovett, was also a student at Harvard at the time; Lovett recalled the day of Manly's exam:

When Manly emerged with triumphant nonchalance, there was eager inquiry to secure data for future use. "What did Stubby ask?" "What did Kitteredge ?" when we got to Wendell, I remember Manly's reply was: " He didn't ask me anything. He only gave me a cigar"-an incident which was long cited as an instance of the highest academic chivalry.

After his first year of professorship in the English department at Brown University, Manly returned to Harvard to teach a summer course in Old English. He maintained his position at Brown until 1898 when President William Rainey Harper persuaded him to move to the University of Chicago. Manly's great incentive was that he would be the head of the English Department; he held that position until his retirement in 1933.

In the English department at the U of C Manly pursued studies in English literature and focused on Pier the Plowman, Shakespeare, Chaucer and general education. Manly was the first to theorize that the various versions of Pier the Plowman the work were not by just one author. Manly served as the Chicago Exchange Professor at the University of Göttingen (1909).

Circa 1913 Colonel George Fabyan invited Manly to examine Shakespeare's text to decipher codes placed in the text by the alleged author, Bacon. In six weeks Manly developed a system for deciphering the codes which he concluded did not validate Bacon's authorship. On the reputation of this work he was invited by the US government to join the Military Intelligence Division in the encoding and decoding of messages and the deciphering of enemy codes in 1915. Manly stepped down from the U of C for the duration of the war. As a successful decipher, Major Manly, earned the respect of his military peers before returning to the English Chair in 1919.

Deeply interested in language and mystery Manly turned his attentions toward Chaucer's writings. In the Oxford Lowell Institute lectures (1924) he asserted that Chaucer's characters were based on people that he knew. An idea widely accepted today but Manly had to delve deep into Chaucer's life to find the associates.

A devoted educator Manly published books for all ages and in particular edited texts of poetry for classroom use at various grade levels. As the editor of Modern Philogy Manly explored his more complex academic interests. Manly believed he would have been a better scholar if he would have either had fewer interests or loved the English department a little less.

For the last 15 years of his life Manly and his former student Edith Rickertt were engaged in an in depth study of the Canterbury tales. They, along with one or more of Manly's four sisters spent 6 months of each year in England examining texts and managed to get photostatic copies of all eighty five known Chaucerian manuscripts; they also discovered sixteen unknown fragments. Rickert and Manly amassed these in Chicago so that they could study them together and make them available to other scholars. The death of the young Rickert left Manly to finish the task of editing the eight volume set alone. He published this in 1939. just prior to his own death in 1940. The weight of the volume both intellectually and financially meant that individual scholars were not able to examine the books until after WWII.

Manly was involved in many academic organizations and received five honorary degrees for his work in addition to the honor bestowed on him by the University of Chicago when it named a chair after him.

Manly was groomed for academic success by his lineage. His great grandfather Basil Manly, was President of the University of Alabama and founded the Alabama Historical Society. Manly's grandfather, Basil Manly, Jr. ministered to churches in four states and was President of the Georgetown College of Kentucky in the midst of his fatherly duties to 18 children. The Manly's were a politically invested southern family and Basil Manly, Jr. delivered the inaugural prayer when Jefferson Davis was inducted into the Confederate Presidency. Manly's father, Charles Manly, carried on the pastoral and educational traditions set by his family and became a Baptist minister and the president of Central College and Furman University in the American south.

Manly's father married Mary Esther Hellen Matthews who mothered seven children. John M. Manly was born on 2 Sep 1865 in Sumter Co. Alabama. His brothers were quite successful, Charles Matthews Manly, (1876-1927) is noted for inventing the Langley Airplane in 1903. Basil Maxwell Manly was a noted economist with the Federal Power Commission.

A beloved teacher and brother, Manly passed away after a heart attack in Tucson, Arizona on 2 April 1940.