Margery Bailey

Margery Bailey (May 12, 1891 - June 17, 1963) was a professor of English and Dramatic Arts and Literature at Stanford University. She is regarded as "one of Stanford’s most celebrated teachers in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s."

Early life and education Margery Bailey was born on May 12, 1891, in Santa Cruz, California, the daughter of John Howard Bailey and Margaret Elizabeth Jones. Her students included John Steinbeck, Laird Doyle, Waldo Salt, Archie Binns, Anita M. Caspary, IHM and Angus Bowmer, who later founded the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Twice she persuaded Steinbeck to return to his studies at Stanford, and she is regarded as one of the two influential people in his formative years (the other being Stanford professor Edith R. Mirrielees). Charles R. Lyons (1933–1999), later professor of drama and comparative literature at Stanford University, studied under Bailey as an undergraduate at Stanford, and later was given the professorship that bears Bailey's name. Bailey's difficult personality and her flair for the dramatic were famous at Stanford. Her collection of rare books about Shakespeare, donated to Southern Oregon University, has grown to more than 7200 volumes.

She corresponded with John P. Marquand, Clarence Darrow, Gertrude Stein, Robinson Jeffers, Irvin S. Cobb, Harold Bell Wright, Helen Keller and Gregory Peck. The house is now an historical landmark. Lamson was the sister of Stanford executive David Lamson who was accused of killing his wife, Allene, in 1933. He was sentenced to be hanged at San Quentin, but a team of Stanford colleagues, including his sister Margaret, stepped in to form the Lamson Defense Committee. The group included poets Yvor Winters and Janet Lewis and criminologist E.O. Heinrich. They managed to overturn the verdict.

Death and legacy Margery Bailey died on June 17, 1963, at age 72.

Stanford University endows the Margery Bailey Professorship in English.

The Bailey Lounge, located in the Liliore Green Rains Houses, a graduate housing complex at Stanford, is named after her.

The Margery Bailey Renaissance Collection at Southern Oregon University's Hannon Library.