HORNER, I. B. The British scholar Isaline B. Horner (1896–1981) devoted her considerable intelligence and energy to furthering scholarly and popular understanding of Buddhism, especially in the English-speaking West. After earning her B.A. (1917) at Newnham College—then one of only two women's colleges at Cambridge University—Horner stayed at the college as assistant librarian (1918–1920) and then acting librarian (1920–1921). In 1921 she accepted an invitation to accompany the college principal's sister, D. J. Stephen, on a trip to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, and Burma (now Myanmar). Although Stephen probably considered the trip a Christian mission, she and Horner shared an interest in Eastern religions, and Horner filled her letters home with descriptions of Buddhist and Hindu practices she encountered in these British colonies.

After two years abroad, Horner returned to Newnham as librarian, a position she would hold until 1936. Shortly thereafter, she began studying the...