Lady Charlotte Guest

Lady Charlotte Guest
Lady Charlotte Guest

Portrait of Lady Charlotte Guest
Born 19 May 1812
Uffington, Lincolnshire, England
Died 15 January 1895 (age 82)
Occupation Translator, businesswoman

Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest, (née Bertie) (19 May 1812 – 15 January 1895), later Lady Charlotte Schreiber, was an English businesswoman and translator. An important figure in the study of Welsh literature and the Welsh language, she is best known for her pioneering English translation of the major medieval work, the Mabinogion.

Contents

Biography

Guest was born at Uffington House in Uffington, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Albemarle Bertie, 9th Earl of Lindsey and his second wife Charlotte Susanna Elizabeth Layard. Her father died when she was six, and her mother remarried to Reverend Peter Pegus, whom Charlotte disliked. She showed a great talent for study and taught herself Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian.

After what may have been a brief flirtation with the future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, she escaped her unhappy home life through marriage in 1833, which was, however, not a conventional one for her age. Her husband, John Josiah Guest, was an industrialist in Wales, the owner of the Dowlais Iron Company and rather older than she was; he was 49 while she was 21. They moved to Dowlais in Merthyr Tydfil after he was elected Member of Parliament for the constituency in 1832. Charlotte was very happy in her marriage, which produced ten children. She took an enthusiastic interest in her husband's philanthropic activities on behalf of the local community and also became involved in the business of the iron works, translating technical documents into French. John Guest eventually obtained a baronetcy in 1838.

The decline of her husband's health meant that Charlotte spent more time administering the business and took over completely following his death in 1852. She stood up to both her workers and other foundry owners until she relinquished her position to G. T. Clark in 1855[1] upon her marriage to Charles Schreiber. Schreiber was a classical scholar and a Member of Parliament for Cheltenham and later Poole. They left Wales and spent many years travelling in Europe collecting ceramics which she bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum. She also collected fans, board games and playing cards, which she donated to the British Museum.

Guest's eldest son Ivor eventually became First Baron Wimborne and married Lady Cornelia Spencer-Churchill, eldest daughter of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough and thus aunt to Winston Churchill. They were parents of the First Viscount Wimborne. Among her other descendants are the American Guests (the late socialite C. Z. Guest was wife of one of these), the Earls of Bessborough, the Viscounts Chelmsford, and others.

Translations

During her time in Wales, Guest learned Welsh and associated with literary scholars, including Thomas Price, Villemarqué, Judge Bosanquet, and Gwallter Mechain, who encouraged her in her work. She translated several medieval songs and poems, and eventually the Mabinogion, which was an immediate success. The name Mabinogion for these stories begins with Guest; the word Mabinogi technically applies to only the first four tales, known as the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. One manuscript contains the word mabynnogyon, which she took for a plural and applied to the collection as a whole.

The tales of the Mabinogion had been summarized in William Owen Pughe's Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, and Pughe had completed a translation of the tales which was left unpublished at his death in 1835. Guest did not rely on Pughe's translations, though she did use a Welsh dictionary Pughe had completed in 1803. Her Mabinogion became the first translation of the material to be published. It was printed in several volumes between 1838 and 1849, with the first volumes dedicated to the Arthurian material; volume I contained the Welsh Romances Owain, Peredur, and Geraint and Enid, while volume two contained Culhwch ac Olwen and The Dream of Rhonabwy. Geraint and Enid served as the basis for Alfred, Lord Tennyson's two poems about Geraint in the Idylls of the King.

Legacy

Lady Charlotte Guest was a "foreigner" (non-Welsh person) who helped revive Welsh culture. She is remembered, along with her near-contemporary Lady Llanover, as a great patron of the arts in Wales. A public house, built as part of the regeneration of Dowlais in the 1980s, was named the Lady Charlotte in her honour.

Publications

References

  1. ^ James, B. Ll., "Clark, George Thomas", on the website of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Subscription or UK public library membership required), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/5461 

Bibliography


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Lady Charlotte Guest — Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest (geborene Bertie; * 19. Mai 1812 in Uffington, Lincolnshire; † 15. Januar 1895) war eine britische Übersetzerin, Pädagogin und Unternehmerin. Ihre Übersetzung des Mabinogion ins Englische machten die… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Charlotte Guest — Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest (geborene Bertie; * 19. Mai 1812 in Uffington, Lincolnshire; † 15. Januar 1895) war eine britische Übersetzerin, Pädagogin und Unternehmerin. Ihre Übersetzung des Mabinogion ins Englische machten die… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Charlotte Guest — Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest, née Bertie le 19 mai 1812 et morte le 15 janvier 1895 fut une traductrice et une femme d’affaires britannique. C’est une figure importante des études de la littérature galloise et de la langue… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Guest, Lady Charlotte(Bertie) — (1812 1895)    Dau. of the 9th Earl of Lindsey, m. in 1833 Sir Josiah J. Guest, a wealthy ironmaster, after whose death in 1852 she managed the works. She was an enthusiastic student of Welsh literature, and aided by native scholars translated… …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • Guest (surname) — Guest is a surname, and may refer to:;Persons *Al Guest (contemporary), Canadian animation producer *Barbara Guest (1920–2006), American poet and critic *Bill Guest (contemporary), Canadian television host *Brian Guest (contemporary), Canadian… …   Wikipedia

  • Lady Guest — Charlotte Guest Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Guest, née Bertie le 19 mai 1812 et morte le 15 janvier 1895 fut une traductrice et une femme d’affaire britannique. C’est une figure importante des études de la littérature galloise et …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Guest family — The Guest family were a British family of the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth centuries who, among other things built a huge industrial business in the Dowlais Iron Company and later in Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds.John GuestJohn Guest (1722… …   Wikipedia

  • Charlotte Rae — Rae at the 1988 Emmy Awards Born Charlotte Rae Lubotsky April 22, 1926 (1926 04 22) (age 85) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S …   Wikipedia

  • John Josiah Guest — Sir Josiah John Guest, 1st Baronet, known as John Josiah Guest, (February 2, 1785 November 26, 1852) was a Welsh engineer and entrepreneur.LifeBorn in Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, as the son of Thomas Guest, a partner in the Dowlais Iron… …   Wikipedia

  • Charlotte Mitchell — est une actrice et scénariste anglaise née le 23 juillet 1926 à Ipswich (Royaume Uni). Sommaire 1 Biographie 2 Filmographie 2.1 comme actrice …   Wikipédia en Français

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”