Sarah Austin

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Sarah Austin

Sarah Austin , née Sarah Taylor (* 1793 in Norwich , † August 8, 1867 in Weybridge , Surrey ) was a British writer and translator. She played a significant role as a mediator in European culture.

Life

Sarah Taylor married the legal philosopher John Austin in 1820 . The couple lived in Queen Square, Westminster, where Sarah Austin, who, unlike her husband, was very sociable, kept a drawing room . She was in contact with countless personalities from cultural life, not only in England, but also in France and Germany. Heinz Ohff leads, for example, the Brothers Grimm , Leopold von Ranke , Alexander von Humboldt , Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and Heinrich Heine . She was on friendly terms with Victor Cousin , whose book on the Prussian education system she translated from French and supplemented with a comprehensive foreword, and with Ida von Lüttichau . After Paris , Bonn , Dresden and Weimar she undertook longer trips.

Sarah Austin's particular importance lies in the translation of German literature (including Goethe , Leopold von Ranke , Friedrich von Raumer , Barthold Georg Niebuhr , Friedrich Wilhelm Carové ), which made it better known in English-speaking countries. Ohff describes her translation of Pückler-Muskau's sensational letters from a deceased person as a “masterpiece” that is probably better than the original.

After her husband's death in 1859, she edited his lectures. She edited the first volume of Letters from Egypt (1865) by her daughter Lucie Duff Gordon (not to be confused with the fashion designer Lucy Christiana Duff Gordon ).

Works

  • The travels of a German prince in England (Lond. 1832) (based on letters from a deceased by Hermann von Pückler-Muskau )
  • Characteristics of Goethe (1833, 3 volumes) (translations of Goethe's works and comments on them)
  • Considerations on national education (1839)
  • Collection of fragments from the German prosewriters (1841)
  • Sketches of Germany from 1760 to 1814 (1854)
  • Letters on girls' schools (1857)

literature

  • Janet Ross: Three Generations of English Women (1893) (Ross was a granddaughter of Sarah Austin)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Ohff : Der Grüne Fürst , Munich 1991, paperback edition 2002, page 145
  2. ^ Victor Cousin: Report on the State of Public Instruction of Prussia. With Plans of School Houses (London 1834)
  3. ^ Mondrian W. Graf v. Lüttichau (Ed.): Truth of the Soul - Ida v. Lüttichau (1798-1856) , Leipzig 2010 (multiple mentions)
  4. ↑ Heinz Ohff 2002, page 168
  5. ^ Project Gutenberg: Digitized Letters of Egypt
personal data
SURNAME Austin, Sarah
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Taylor, Sarah (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH Norwich
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1867
Place of death Weybridge , Surrey