Howard Parshley


Howard Madison Parshley was an American zoologist, a specialist on the Heteroptera who also wrote more broadly on genetics, reproduction, and human sexuality. He was responsible for translating The Second Sex into English.

Life

The son of a Baptist minister, Parshley was educated at Harvard University. From 1911 to 1914, he taught zoology at the University of Maine. In 1917, Parshley became assistant professor of zoology at Smith College, where he would stay until 1952. In 1949, he was asked to translate Simone de Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe. Despite a minor heart attack in 1952, Parshley completed this task; his translation, published in 1953, has subsequently been criticized for inaccuracies and excisions.

Works