Muir, Willa

Willa Muir (1890-1970) was born Wilhelmina Anderson in Montrose, Scotland. She studied Classics at the University of St Andrews between 1907 and 1910, graduating with a first class honours degree. She entered a career in education, achieving the position of vice-principal of Gypsy Hill Training College, London in 1918. The same year she met Edwin Muir (1887-1959), who was then a clerk in a Glasgow shipping office and was to become one of the most important Scottish poets of the twentieth century. They married the following year and embarked on a somewhat peripatetic life together, living on the continent in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria, France and Italy, as well as in America, England and Scotland, for a time returning to St Andrews. Their son, Gavin, was born in 1927. Willa and Edwin made a living teaching, writing freelance and translating. Later Edwin was appointed Director of the British Institute in Prague and Rome, Warden of Newbattle Abbey College in Scotland and Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard University. After Edwin's death Willa continued writing until her death in 1970.

Willa Muir's published works include two novels: Imagined Corners and Mrs Ritchie published in 1935 and 1933. Mrs Grundy in Scotland, a social and historic commentary was written during the Muir's time in St Andrews and published in 1936. Living with Ballads (Hogarth Press, 1965), an exploration of traditional Scottish oral poetry, and Willa Muir's autobiographical, Belonging: A Memoir (Hogarth Press, 1968) are both represented in the collection.

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