E. S. Drower

Ethel Stefana Drower née Stevens (1 December 1879 – 27 January 1972) was a British cultural anthropologist who studied the Middle East and its cultures. She was considered the primary specialist on the Mandaeans, and the chief collector of Mandaean manuscripts.

She was a daughter of a clergyman. In 1906 she was working for Curtis Brown, a London literary agency when she signed Arthur Ransome to write Bohemia in London.

In 1910, she married Edwin Drower and after his knighthood became Lady Drower. As E. S. Stevens, she wrote a series of romantic novels for Mills and Boon and other publishers. In 1921, she accompanied her husband to Iraq where Sir Edwin Drower was adviser to the Justice Minister from 1921 to 1946.^[1] Her works include The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans (a translation of the Qolusta); The Secret Adam (Mandaeans); and The Peacock Angel (about the Yezidis).^[2]

Bibliography

Works as E. S. Stevens

• The Veil: A Romance of Tunis, New York, F.A. Stokes, 1909.
• The Mountain of God, London, Mills & Boon, 1911.
• Two works reviewing the Bahá'í Faith in 1911 - "Abbas Effendi: His Personality, Work, and Followers" in Fortnightly Review,^[3] and "The Light in the Lantern" in Everybody's Magazine.^[4]
• The Long Engagement, New York, Hodder & Stoughton, 1912.
• The Lure, New York, John Lane, 1912.
• Sarah Eden, London, Mills & Boon, 1914.
• Allward, London, Mills & Boon, 1915.
• "--And What Happened", London, Mills & Boon, 1916.
• The Safety Candle, London, Cassell and Company, 1917.
• Magdalene: A Study in Methods, London, Cassell, 1919.
• By Tigris and Euphrates, London, Hurst & Blackett, 1923.
• Sophy: A Tale of Baghdad, London, Hurst & Blackett, 1924.
• Cedars, Saints and Sinners in Syria, London, Hurst & Blackett, 1926.
• The Losing Game, London, Hurst & Blackett, 1926.
• Garden of Flames, New York, F.A. Stokes, 1927.
• Ishtar, London, Hurst & Blackett, 1927.
• Folk-Tales of Iraq, set down and translated from the vernacular by E. S. Stevens, New York, B. Blom, 1971.

Works as E. S. Drower

• The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: Their Cults, Customs, Magic, Legends, and Folklore, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1937.
• Peacock Angel: Being Some Account of Votaries of a Secret Cult and Their Sanctuaries, London, J. Murray, 1941.
• Water into Wine: A Study of Ritual Idiom in the Middle East, London, Murray, 1956.
• The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1960.
• A Mandaic Dictionary, (with Rudolf Macúch), London, Clarendon Press. 1963.
• Drower's Folk-Tales of Iraq, edited by Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, Piscataway, N.J., Gorgias Press, 2007.

Translations as E. S. Drower

• The Book of the Zodiac = Sfar Malwaˆsia : D. C. 31, London, Royal Asiatic Society, 1949.
• The Wedding of Shishlam Rba, 1950.
• Mandaeans. Liturgy and Ritual. The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans, Translated with notes. Leiden : E. J. Brill, 1959.
• Haran Gawaita - The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa: the Mandaic text reproduced, together with translation, notes and commentary, Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1953.
• Alf trisar ŝuialia. The Thousand and Twelve Questions: A Mandaean Text, edited in transliteration and translation. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1960.
• The Coronation of Shishlam Rba, 1962.
• The Great First World and The Lesser First World, 1963.

References