Susanna Winkworth

Statut : translator

1820-1884

Notes : Susanna and her younger sister Catherine (1827-1878) were well-known translators from the German, especially of religious texts; Catherine’s translations of hymns are still in use, and both were also active in promoting women’s education. They were deeply influenced by Schleiermacher’s theory of free translation, and were in close contact with intellectual circles in London, especially that around Baron Bunsen. Susanna asked Bunsen’s permission to translate the brief biographical memoir of Niebuhr by Mme Hensler (Niebuhr’s sister-in-law); but she incorporated so much new material that the work is in fact an original biography, which expanded from two to three volumes in the second edition (both editions are dated 1852, though the second seems to have been issued in 1853). Susanna acted as Bunsen’s literary assistant for a time in London, translating various religious works for him; she translated Martin Luther’s edition of the medieval mystical text, Theologia Germanica (1854), and completed Archdeacon Hare’s life of Luther (1855); she translated Max Muller’s German Love (1858), and later compiled Memorials of Catherine Winkworth (1883). See DNB under Catherine Winkworth; Susanne Stark, “Behind Inverted Commas” (1999).

Traductions :

• Traducteur de The life and letters of B.G. Niebuhr, with essays on his character and influence, by C.K.J. Bunsen, C.A. Brandis and J.W. Lorbell [i.e. Loebell] (1852)