Gildersleeve, Basil (Lanneau) (1831-1924)

US classicist. Thought of as the greatest American classicist of his day, his Latin Grammar (1867), Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes (1885), and Greek Syntax (1900) were used by generations of American students. Gildersleeve was born in Charleston, South Carolina. A child prodigy who read widely in Latin by the age of six, he received his BA from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) aged 17 and his PhD from the University of Gottingen at 22. He founded the American Journal of Philology (1880), was twice president of the American Philological Association (1878 and 1909), and was closely involved in the development of the Johns Hopkins graduate school, where he taught from 1856-1915.