Ethel, Lady Drower (néeEthel May Stefana Stevens;[1] 1 December 1879 – 27 January 1972) was a
Britishcultural anthropologist, orientalist and novelist who studied the
Middle East and its cultures.[2] She was and is still considered one of the primary specialists on the
Mandaeans, and was the dedicated collector of Mandaean manuscripts.[3]
In 1911, she married
Edwin Drower and after his knighthood became Lady Drower. As E. S. Stevens, she wrote a series of romantic novels for
Mills & Boon and other publishers. In 1921, she accompanied her husband to Iraq where Sir Edwin Drower was adviser to the Justice Minister from 1921 to 1947.[2] Among her grandchildren was the campaigning journalist
Roly Drower.
Her works include the comprehensive description and display of the last practising gnostic
Mandaeans' rituals, rites, and customs in The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: Their Cults, Customs, Magic, Legends, and Folklore, The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans (a translation of the
Qolasta), The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis, and The Peacock Angel (novel about the
Yezidis),[4] editions of unique manuscripts such as astronomical divinations (
omen) (The Book of the Zodiac) and magical texts (A Book of Black Magic;[5]A Phylactery for Rue),[6] and relevant translations of
Mandaean religious works such as The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa and The Coronation of the Great Šišlam.[2] Drower's final major work titled Mass and Masiqta or Messiah, Mass and Masiqta remains unpublished to this day, and it is unclear if the full manuscript exists.[7]
Before her scholarly activity, "Already under her maiden name of Ethel Stefana Stevens, Lady Drower had been inspired by the Orient. Between 1909 and 1927, she published 13 novels, and she was the author of two delectable books of travel."[8][2]
Ethel, Lady Drower died on 27 January 1972, aged 92. She was survived by her children, including daughter,
Margaret "Peggy" Hackforth-Jones, and other family members.[9]
Awards and honors
Drower received several honours for her scholarly contributions:
The Drower Collection (DC), held at the
Bodleian Library in
Oxford University, is the most extensive collection of Mandaean manuscripts. The collection consists of 55 manuscripts, many of which Drower had obtained through the Mandaean priest Sheikh
Negm bar Zahroon.[11]
Drower donated MSS. Drower 1-53 to the
Bodleian Library in 1958. MS. Drower 54, The Coronation of the Great Šišlam, was given to the library by Lady Drower in 1961. MS. Drower 55, Lady Drower's personal notebook, was added in 1986.[1]
After her death, some of Drower's private notebooks were obtained by
Rudolf Macúch. These notebooks are not part of the Bodleian Library's Drower Collection.[9]
MS. DC 2, which was copied by
Sheikh Negm for Drower in 1933, mentions the
Mandaean baptismal name (i.e., spiritual name given by a Mandaean priest, as opposed to a birth name) of E. S. Drower as Klila pt Šušian (
Classical Mandaic: ࡊࡋࡉࡋࡀ ࡐࡕ ࡔࡅࡔࡉࡀࡍ,
lit. 'Wreath, daughter of Susan'), as her middle name Stefana means 'wreath' in Greek. MS. DC 26, a manuscript copied by copied by Sheikh Faraj for Drower in 1936, contains two qmahas (exorcisms). MS. DC 26 is dedicated to Drower's daughter,
Margaret ("Peggy"), who is given the Mandaean baptismal name Marganita pt Klila ("Pearl, daughter of Wreath") in the text.[9]
Diwan Abatur or Progress Through the Purgatories, text with translation notes and Appendices, Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1950.
The
Haran Gawaita and the
Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa: the Mandaic text reproduced, together with translation, notes and commentary, Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1953.
^
abcdeChrista Müller-Kessler, Drower [née Stevens], Ethel May Stefana, Lady Drower, in New Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 16 (Oxford, 2004), pp. 193–194.
[1]
^Today stored as Drower Collection (DC) in the
Bodleian Library, Oxford. A comprehensive list is found in E. S. Drower, A Mandæan Bibliography, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1953, pp. 34–39.
^Rudolf Macuch, Lady Ethel Stefana Drower, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 124, 1974, pp. 6–12.
^E. S. Drower, A Mandæan Book of Black Magic, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1943, pp. 149–181
^E. S. Drower, A Phylactery for Rue. (An Invocation of the Personified Herb), Orientalia N.S. 15, 1946, pp. 324–346.