Alfred Elwes Explained

Alfred Elwes
Birth Date:1819
Birth Place:Woolwich, Kent, England
Death Date:7 December 1888
Death Place:Kensington, London, England
Occupation:writer and philologist
Nationality:British
Period:1845–1888

Alfred Elwes (1819–1888) was a nineteenth-century British author of children's literature, academic, philologist, and occasional translator of French, Italian and Portuguese literature into English. He is perhaps best remembered for his translation of the medieval Arthurian romance Jaufry the Knight and the Fair Brunissende; a Tale of the Times of King Arthur.

Life and career

Elwes was born in 1819 at Woolwich, Kent.[1] In his education Elwes attained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.[2] He studied at Leiden in the Netherlands.[1]

Subsequently Elwes was Professor of English at Leghorn, Tuscany.[1] His earliest known work, Il Nuovo Vergani (1845), a grammar in Italian for the study of English,[1] was probably written and published during his tenure in this position, as was, no doubt, his earliest known translation, A new and complete Italian grammar by Vergani (1846), which would have performed the same office in English for the study of Italian.

Later, after returning to England, Elwes served as President of the British Literary Society in a term beginning in 1857[3] and running through 1858.[4] [5] In 1868 he served, along with Samuel Neil, as one of the two vice-presidents of the newly established British Literary Union.[6] In 1870 he held the position of Official Translator of Modern Languages in London.[1]

He died in December 1888 in Kensington.[7]

Literary works

Elwes' interests in Continental languages and travel are reflected in most of his works. He both wrote and translated travel literature, and much of his children's fiction details the lives or adventures of young protagonists in European locales.

In addition to his works published in book form, Elwes contributed prose and verse to various periodicals.[1]

Elwes was the compiler of a number of English/Romance dictionaries, as well as Romance language grammars for the use of students learning the languages, all reissued in various editions into the twentieth century.

Bibliography

Juvenile fiction

Animal stories

Other

Nonfiction

History

Travel

Philological reference works

Translated works

Short pieces

Notes and References

  1. Allibone, S. Austin. A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors Living and Deceased, from the Earliest Accounts to the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century. London, Trübner & Co., 1871, vol. III, p. 2781 (a digression under the entry for Joseph Wilson).
  2. Book: Kirk, John Foster . 1891 . A Supplement to Allibone's Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors . Philadelphia . . 555.
  3. The British Controversialist, and Literary Magazine, n.s., v. 5, 1858, London, Houlston and Wright, 1858, p. 279.
  4. The British Controversialist, and Literary Magazine, n.s., v. 6, 1858, London, Houlston and Wright, 1858, p. 192.
  5. The Literary and Education Year Book for 1859, London, Kent and Co., [1858], p. 274.
  6. The Quarterly Journal of the British Literary Union, Preliminary Number, April 1868, London, Longmans, Green, & Co., p. [34].
  7. Web site: Kensington Vol.1a p.109 . Death Certificate Index . FreeBMD. 28 May 2013.

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