Roma Gill, who has died aged 66, was a noted Shakespeare and Marlowe scholar who, in 1977, found a new career editing more than 30 texts, including three titles in the Oxford Marlowe and 21 titles in the Oxford School Shakespeare series. Her clear notes and introductions made the language and the plays intelligible to young readers all over the world.
She was always faithful to the text and the period in which Shakespeare wrote. Theories that Viola, in Twelfth Night, was a depressive, or that Katherine's speech at the end of The Taming Of The Shrew is ironic were all crushed and referred back to the context of Tudor England.
She also wrote numerous scholarly articles and reviews, lectured widely, and was an inspiration to the many students she taught.
Born in Keighley, Yorkshire, Roma went to Keighley grammar school; she was always proud of her northern roots and liked to be known as a Yorkshire lass. She turned down an Oxford scholarship to take a place reading English at New Hall, Cambridge, as one of only 15 founder undergraduates.
After graduating, she thought she had better give Oxford a try, and, from 1957-59, studied for a BLitt on Philip Massinger. From 1959-63, she lectured at Ripon and Kesteven colleges of education, and it was while at Kesteven in 1960 that she discovered there was something wrong - "I started to fall over," she said later. There is a photo of Roma at a distinguished gathering of scholars, literally with her back to the wall; she was trying not to fall down. This was the start of what was diagnosed in 1965 as multiple sclerosis.
Roma fought back and went on to Sheffield University, initially as an assistant lecturer and finally as its youngest-ever reader in English. Despite her illness, she travelled widely to destinations ranging from Woolagong, Australia, to Yaounde, Cameroon. She taught at summer schools at Oxford and Stratford, and lectured in New York, Berlin, New Orleans, Malta and Florida - all this in a wheelchair and in considerable pain. "Don't worry," she would say, "I'm just going into spasm."
As Roma's illness worsened, she took early retirement from Sheffield in 1984; then, she could just about walk on crutches. After a period in Oxford, which she left saying it was not a good place for disabled people - "terrible pavements" - she went to Cambridge. She said it was like coming home.
By this time, Roma could move only her left hand, and "was stuck for ever in this bloody chair". She could no longer type, so she dictated texts and notes into a voice-activated computer - and kept going, even when she had a cold and the machine would not recognise her voice, printing "crp, crp" every time she coughed. In spite of all this, she loved eating out, even though she could only use her left hand as a scoop, which was good for eating prawns.
An example of her determination was evident on the day she went to Buckingham Palace to collect her OBE, for services to literature. The palace footmen were alarmed at this fierce lady in an electric wheelchair, and feared she would run over the Queen's feet with it. Their solution was to try to carry it and her into the royal presence.
Roma, however, insisted on propelling herself, drove firmly forward, and did a smart left turn towards the Queen. "And what do you do?" asked the Queen. "Shakespeare," said Roma. "How nice," said the Queen - and Roma reversed and drove off. The Royal Scots Guards band was playing Some Enchanted Evening at the time. They don't feed you at OBE ceremonies, so Roma threw her own reception at Liverpool Street station. By this time, she had destroyed the feathered hat she had been advised to wear for the ceremony.
I was Roma's editor at Oxford University Press for 25 years. I could help with her books, but her suffering was beyond me. I could only guess at what she went through at night, unable to sleep or move. Being Roma, it was not so much the pain as the boredom that got to her. As her doctor told me in 1986: "She should be dead by now. It's the Shakespeares that keep her going." And they did; even as she was dying, she was still dictating notes in her half-sleep.
For many people it's Psalm 23 that they fall back on. With Roma, it was Psalm 119, a much tougher and more complex piece, which she used to quote to me over the phone: "I am become like a bottle in the smoke" - a striking, if rather tragic, image, but perhaps suitable for someone who had spent her life interpreting images for her students and readers.