Valentine Leeper

Valentine Alexa Leeper (14 February 1900 – 26 July 2001) was an Australian classicist, teacher, polemicist, and letter-writer of renown.

Life Valentine Leeper was born on Valentine's Day 1900 in the Leeper Building of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, daughter of Alexander Leeper, first warden of that college, and his second wife, Mary (née Moule). Her half-brothers, Reginald Leeper and Allen Leeper, both became prominent British diplomats. Her brother, Geoffrey Leeper, became the first professor of agricultural chemistry at the University of Melbourne.

Leeper was educated at Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School and at Trinity College. For many years she worked as secretary and carer to her father, and then as carer for her mother. After both had died, in her middle age, she obtained work as a school teacher.

Nobody's Valentine: Letters in the Life of Valentine Alexa Leeper, 1900-2001 was published in 2008. It was launched by Geoffrey Blainey and has been described by women's historian Patricia Grimshaw as "a vivid and compelling portrait of this influential woman", and as being at "the forefront of insightful biography".