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‘J. D. Duff of Trinity 1860–1940 by Major-General A. C. Duff, C.B., O.B.E., M.C.’

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Unpublished biography of the Scottish classical scholar and Cambridge Apostle James Duff Duff (1860–1940) written by his eldest son.

Schooled at Fettes College (where he was among the first intake), Duff won a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1878, studying under H.A.J. Munro and graduating as Fifth Classic. A Fellowship followed in 1883, and over the coming decades he taught Latin and Greek at both Trinity and Girton and produced editions of Cicero, Juvenal (his best-known work), Lucretius, Lucan, Pliny the Younger, and Silius Italicus, in addition to several translations from Russian.

This intimate portrait opens with an anecdote about Duff’s christening, at which a misunderstood repetition of his surname led to him being named James Duff Duff, and covers, inter alia, his Cambridge friends and acquaintances, sporting pursuits (including golf), visits to Scotland, family life, relations with A.E. Housman, and life during the First World War. Also discussed are Duff’s encounters with his pupils – including Lytton Strachey, ‘an undergraduate with a squeaky voice’ whose intellectual prowess was commended by Duff – as well as a visit from Elizabeth von Arnim.

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