Muriel St Clare Byrne (1895-1983) was an Elizabethan scholar, dramatist and critic. She grew up in Liverpool and was educated at Belvedere School, before coming up to Somerville in 1914 to read English. At college, she was described as ‘an awfully nice child who writes quite good stuff’; she was elected to membership of the Mutual Admiration Society (MAS) and fellow member Dorothy L. Sayers would become a close friend. On 14 October 1920, Muriel St Clare Byrne, Dorothy L. Sayers and fellow MAS member Muriel Jaeger, were among the first women to graduate from Oxford.
Muriel St Clare Byrne’s career did not follow a conventional academic path; a theatre historian, she published popular books on Elizabethan life. She was an assistant English tutor at Somerville and she lectured at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) as well as at Goldsmiths’ College, Bedford College and on Oxford University extension courses. She served on the councils of various organisations including the Bibliographical Society, the Society for Theatre Research and the British Drama League, and she was a member of the Governing Body of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. She co-wrote the stage play Busman’s Honeymoon with Dorothy L. Sayers, which Sayers later adapted into the final Lord Peter Wimsey novel. Byrne’s life’s work was The Lisle Letters (Chicago University Press, 1981); she had discovered the correspondence of Arthur Plantagenet, some 3000 letters, in the Public Record Office and spent almost 5 decades bringing the six-volume work to publication.
Muriel St Clare Byrne was appointed an OBE in 1955 and elected an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College in 1978.
Provenance
Muriel St Clare Byrne donated her papers to Somerville College; the collection comprises records of her work, her family, her friends and her personal life, including a selection of photographs, plays, poems and theatrical ephemera. The manuscript of The Lisle Letters and associated papers were deposited at the college by the Chicago University Press in 1982.
Using the collection
The finding aid can be found here. To consult the collection, please complete the application form found on the library and archives website here.
Limitations on use
Muriel St Clare Byrne’s works (including unpublished items in this collection) will remain in copyright until the end of 2053. Reproduction of any materials in this collection for any purpose other than personal research will require the copyright holder’s permission.