Muriel St Clare Byrne Collection

Muriel St Clare Byrne (1895-1983) was a prominent historian and researcher who specialised in the Tudor period. She attended Somerville College from 1914-17 and studied English. She later became an assistant tutor in English at the College in 1919, and graduated with an M.A. in 1920. Afterwards, she lectured in London on Elizabethan theatre, becoming a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. In 1937, she collaborated with an old friend and Somerville contemporary, Dorothy Leigh Sayers, in writing the play Busman’s Honeymoon.

Her most notable work, however, was The Lisle Letters a collection of and commentary on the correspondence of Arthur Plantagenet. It took her 50 years to produce the six volumes, which were eventually published in 1981 on her 86th birthday. Somerville College has a collection of her papers, correspondence and photographs which are listed here: Muriel St Clare Byrne collection.