Arthur Sanders Way, son of the Reverend William Way, was educated at Kingswood School, Bath and graduated from the University of London with an M.A. in 1870. After teaching in English secondary schools, Way was appointed headmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne in 1881. He retired in 1892 and returned to England where he was an examiner in Latin for the Welsh Secondary Education Board 1897-1904 and acting headmaster of Mill Hill.
Way attained eminence as a translator of the classics. The University of London awarded him a Doctor of Literature in 1907 for translations from the Greek epic and dramatic poetry. His presidential address to the Melbourne Shakespeare Society in 1888 was delivered in metre. He contributed chapters to Cassell's Pictueresque Australasia edited by E. E. Morris (1887-1889).
Way translated the Odes of Horace (1875) and the The Odyssey, Done Into English Verse by Avia (1880) before coming to Australia. While at Wesley College he continued his Homeric verse translations and published his three volume The Iliad of Homer, Done Into English Verse (1885-1886). In later years he translated several of the great Classical authors and some were among the first to be included in the 'Loeb Classical Library'. Miller comments: 'In his rendering he leads one into the atmosphere of the original and at the same time keeps close to the text. The poetic structure and tone are preserved, and modern readers may follow even with relish what the classicist can divine intuitively.' Way also translated into metrical English some of the mediaeval romances. In 1929 he published a fictional work, Sons of the Violet-Crowned : a tale of ancient Athens. Way also wrote Homer (1913) and Greek Through English (1926).
(Source: E. Morris Miller Australian Literature from its Beginnings to 1935 (1940): 833-834);'Way, Arthur Sanders', in Perceval Serle Dictionary of Australian Biography. Volume II. (1949): 469); 'Dr. A. S. Way A Versatile Translator', The Times, 26 September 1930: 14)).
