Mabel Day

Mabel Katharine Day (5 December 1875 – 18 September 1964) was a British scholar of medieval English. She managed the Early English Text Society from 1921 to the 1940s as assistant director. She edited and published medieval texts including contributions to A Guide for Anchoresses and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Life Day was born in the listed building of St Leonard's House in Linney, Ludlow, Shropshire, in 1875. Her parents were Annie (born Metcalfe) and Reverend Henry George Day. Her father had been a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge before he became the headteacher of Sedbergh grammar school.

Day was educated at Brighton High School for Girls, Girton College, Cambridge and the University of London, and thereafter worked as a teacher and lecturer. Day advised on several editions and she worked on the Nero MS version (which had been transcribed by J. A. Herbert). The principles which she established are said to have governed all the later editions. Day completed the work and it was published in 1940. Another of Gollancz's works, Mum and the Sothsegger, was also completed by Day and Robert Steele and published in 1936.

Day was the person who kept the EETS running and financially viable. Even after she stood down in 1949 she stayed on as an advisor for another decade.

Day died in Batheaston, Somerset, in 1964.