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Leofranc Holford-Strevens (born 19 May 1946) is an English classical scholar, an authority on the works of Aulus Gellius, and a former reader for the Oxford University Press.
He is married to the American musicologist Bonnie J. Blackburn.
After Southgate County Grammar School, in 1963 Holford-Strevens attended Christ Church, Oxford, to study Literae Humaniores (a form of classical studies), and stayed on to obtain his doctorate there with a dissertation entitled Select Commentary on Aulus Gellius, Book 2 (1971).
In 1971 Holford-Strevens started work with the Oxford University Press as a graduate proof reader and later rose to become consultant scholar-editor there. His first book-length publication, Aulus Gellius, was published in 1988. Holford-Strevens's book was hailed by Hugh Lloyd-Jones as a masterpiece characterized by a "sharp critical intelligence". More generally, Lloyd-Jones stated that Holford-Strevens was one of the most learned men in England, comparing him to Sebastiano Timpanaro, who also managed to combine a career in a publishing house with world-class contributions to scholarship. [1] [2]
Numerous anecdotes circulate concerning his mannerisms, from his being barred from a college dining room on account of what were called his "mediaeval eating manners" to his ability to navigate streets while buried in The Times , and yet managing to miss running into lampposts. [3] Another anecdote suggests that W. H. Auden once called on dons entertaining him in Oxford to stop chatting, explaining that he wished to listen to Holford-Strevens's conversation as he held forth in another corner of the room. [3]
By the time of his retirement in 2011, Holford-Strevens had proof-read or edited over 500 books, [4] and in retirement he is still active and is working on a new commentary on Gellius. He lives in St Bernard's Road, Oxford. [4] In 2019, his two-volume critical edition of Aulus Gellius' Attic Nights was published. [5]
His work as a copy-editor was recognized in 2016 by the award of the British Academy President's Medal for outstanding service to the cause of the humanities and social sciences. [6]
Holford-Strevens's interest in languages was stimulated by his father, a company secretary, who introduced him at an early age to French, Spanish, and German. [3] He learnt Russian as a young boy out of curiosity when the Sputnik was launched in 1957, desiring to match a classmate who wished to know the tongue of the people who managed the technological feat. [4] According to Sir Keith Thomas, his ability to read forty languages made him a legendary figure at Oxford. [3] [7] He reads all the Romance languages.
