Background
Martha Edith Rickert was born on July 11, 1871 in Dover, Ohio, the daughter of Francis E. and Josephine (Newburgh) Rickert. She was the oldest of four children (all girls) who survived infancy. The family had a marked artistic bent. Her father, who managed the shipping department of a wholesale drug company, was much interested in art; her mother had literary talent. One sister, Margaret, became a professor of art at the University of Chicago and an authority on medieval painting; another sister, Ethel, was a designer and maker of jewelry.
Education
After graduating from Vassar in 1891, Edith Rickert taught for five years in Chicago and Cook County high schools. She completed her doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1899.
Career
She returned to Vassar and remained there as instructor in English from 1897 to 1900. Thereafter for many years she dropped out of academic life to devote herself to writing; during this period, while resident in England, she published five novels, several modernizations of medieval works, such as the lays of Marie de France, early English carols, and The Babees Boke, the last with a valuable introduction on medieval manners. In 1918-19 she worked in the War Department section on codes and ciphers organized by her fellow English scholar John M. Manly.
Returning to Chicago, Miss Rickert joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1924 as associate professor of English. Promoted to professor in 1930, she continued at the university until her death. Her teaching consisted chiefly of courses on Chaucer and on contemporary literature, the latter something of an innovation at the time as a topic of college instruction. In addition she collaborated with Professor Manly in the production of several textbooks, among them a college rhetoric, a book on good English for writers, and volumes on contemporary British and American literature (1921 and 1922).
Manly's participation in this work was as adviser only; the actual writing and most of the ideas were contributed by Miss Rickert, with such help on the books about contemporary literature as she could get from her students. Her very extensive published output could have been accomplished only by a tireless worker.
During the last dozen years of her life she gave much of her time to assisting Professor Manly in his project of a critical edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, to be based on a detailed study of all the existing manuscripts. Once the project was begun, she even increased her hours of labor, motivated by her sense of responsibility and her realization that so costly a project should be completed within the time limits set. Manly and she were complete collaborators; each kept in touch with all phases of the work. But within it they specialized to some extent. Thus Manly concerned himself with the problems of manuscript relationship and the establishment of the critical text; Miss Rickert was responsible for the history of the ownership of the manuscripts and for the search for new information on Chaucer's life. A staff of experienced workers was employed for years at the Public Record Office in London; and when possible, Miss Rickert participated in their tasks.
The aim was the production of a revision and enlargement of the Chaucer Life-Records (1900). Work on this revision, not completed at her death, was carried on by two of her former students. The monumental eight-volume work, The Text of the Canterbury Tales, was published in 1940. In the course of her study of the records and other medieval writings, Miss Rickert made a collection of selections illustrative of fourteenth-century English life, published after her death as Chaucer's World (1948).
An enthusiastic teacher, Miss Rickert aroused corresponding enthusiasm in her students. Not only did they attend her courses eagerly, but they formed small groups for the study, under her direction, of ancillary subjects such as paleography.
She died in Chicago of a coronary thrombosis. By her own request her body was cremated, and the ashes were buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.
Personality
Possessing great stamina, she worked seven days a week, often far into the night or even all night long.
Perhaps the attraction that she exercised over her students was in part due to the distinction and beauty of her person. In her later years soft white hair set off the strength and nobility of her countenance.
In the academic world Miss Rickert was a particularly striking figure, with a face and expression that suggested her brilliant intellect.
