Nigel Wilson (classicist)

Nigel Guy Wilson (born 23 July 1935) is a British scholar, emeritus fellow and tutor in Classics, Lincoln College, Oxford. His field of research is ancient Greek history, language and literature, and culture, art and archaeology of the Byzantine world.

Since retiring in 2002 he has continued his researches into Greek palaeography, textual criticism and the history of classical scholarship. His edition of Sophocles (with Hugh Lloyd-Jones) appeared in 1990 in the series of Oxford Classical Texts, his edition of Aristophanes appeared in 2007 also for the OCTs, and a new edition of Herodotus for the same series appeared in 2015. Other Greek literary works he edited are the scholia to Aristophanes' Knights (with D. Melvyn Jones, 1969) and Acharnians (1975), an anthology of Byzantine prose (1971), Basil the Great's Address to Young Men (1975), Menander Rhetor's treatise (with D. A. Russell, 1981), Aelian's Historical Miscellany (1997) and Pietro Bembo's Oration in defense of Greek literature (2003).

Another substantial piece of work was a contribution to the study of the famous Archimedes Palimpsest, which was sold at auction in New York in 1998 for $2,000,000; the results of a collaboration lasting ten years and involving experts in various fields appeared in The Archimedes palimpsest (Cambridge University Press 2011), which was described by the reviewer in the TLS as "the most beautiful book produced in this century". He is a trustee of the Herculaneum Society, and an editor of the series Sozomena published for the Society by Walter De Gruyter, along with Alessandro Barchiesi, Robert Fowler, and Lucia Prauscello. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1980, which awarded him the Kenyon Medal for distinguished contributions to scholarship.

Published works

• 1963 Manuscripts of Byzantine chant in Oxford (with D. I. Stefanovic)
• 1968 (4th ed. 2014) - Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford University Press) (with L. D. Reynolds)
• 1969 Scholia in Aristophanis Equites (with D. Mervyn Jones)
• 1971 - An Anthology of Byzantine Prose (De Gruyter)
• 1972–73 (2nd ed. 2014) - Mediaeval Greek Bookhands: Examples Selected from Greek Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries (Medieval Academy of America)
• 1975 - St Basil on Greek literature
• 1975 - Scholia in Aristophanis Acharnenses
• 1981 - Menander Rhetor (with Donald A. Russell)
• 1983 (2nd ed. 1996) - Scholars of Byzantium (The Johns Hopkins University Press)
• 1990 - Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford Classical Texts, with Hugh Lloyd-Jones)
• 1990 - Sophoclea (with Hugh Lloyd-Jones)
• 1992 (2nd edition 2017) From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance (The Johns Hopkins University Press)
• 1994 Photius: the Bibliotheca
• 1997 - Aelian: Historical Miscellany (Loeb Classical Library No. 486) (Harvard University Press)
• 1997 - Sophocles: second thoughts (with Hugh Lloyd-Jones)
• 2003 Pietro Bembo, Oratio pro litteris graecis
• 2005 - Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece (Routledge)
• 2007 - Aristophanis Fabulae (Oxford Classical Texts)
• 2007 - Aristophanea
• 2011 - The Archimedes Palimpsest (Cambridge University Press)
• 2011 - A Descriptive Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, Oxford (D. S. Brewer)
• 2014 - Mediaeval Greek Bookhands: Examples Selected from Greek Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries (Medieval Academy of America)
• 2015 - Herodoti Historiae (Oxford Classical Texts)
• 2015 - Herodotea
• 2016 - Manutius: The Greek Classics (The I Tatti Renaissance Library), edited and translated by N. G. Wilson, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts