William Francis Ryan, former Academic Librarian at the Warburg Institute, was a leading historian of the culture and texts of early modern Russia and of the medieval eastern East Slavs. He wrote the definitive history of magic in Russia. His co-edited text and translation of the East Slavic version of the Secret of Secrets is a landmark in the study of this Pseudo-Aristotelian work that circulated very widely in many languages. He also contributed to research on the history of scientific instruments, and of voyages. He was a conspicuously good citizen of academe, through his service to learned societies.
Posted to Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, 22