First Study of Enlightenment Translator Christian Felix Weiße

Monday 21 June 2021

The first book to explore the singularly extensive output of Enlightenment translator, Christian Felix Weiße, is to be published on 30 June 2021. Probably best known as a dramatist and influential children’s writer, Weiße became the most prolific German translator of English literature in the18th century, a popular translator of French drama, and an entrepreneur of the translations of others. Drawing on previously unpublished correspondence, Tom Zille’s book examines Weiße’s wide-ranging professional networks as a cultural mediator of European significance, paying particular attention to his role in the German reception of Ossian, his introduction of English children’s literature to Germany, his translations of popular prose, and the intersections between his original writing and translations.

The author trained as a bookseller in Leipzig, and is currently reading for a PhD in Modern and Contemporary English Literature at the University of Cambridge.

Christian Felix Weiße the Translator. Cultural Transfer and Literary Entrepreneurship in the Enlightenment, by Tom Zille, is published by the IMLR (imlr books, vol. 15)
ISBN 978 0 85457 273 1 | 236pp | 2 col images | Pb