author
Alfred Pretor
1840–1908
A Cambridge classicist with a storyteller’s eye, he turned quiet corners of English village life into warm, observant essays and fiction. His writing blends scholarship, wit, and an affectionate feel for everyday character.
2 Audiobooks
The Chapel on the Hill
by Alfred Pretor
Ronald and I; or, Studies from Life
by Alfred Pretor
About the author
Born in Dorset in 1840, Alfred Pretor was an English scholar, teacher, translator, and author. Reliable sources available here describe him as a head boy at Harrow, a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, and for about thirty-five years a fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.
Alongside his academic life, he wrote books including Ronald and I; or, Studies from Life and The Chapel on the Hill. His published work and library records also show him as an editor and translator of classical texts, especially connected with the Roman satirist Persius.
Pretor died near Weymouth in January 1908. The picture that emerges is of a learned Victorian don who also had a gift for noticing the texture of ordinary life, which helps give his books their calm, humane appeal.