Alfred Elwes

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. In his education Elwes attained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He studied at Leiden in the Netherlands.

Subsequently Elwes was Professor of English at Leghorn, Tuscany, where his son, Alfred Thomas Elwes, was born about 1841. His earliest known work, Il Nuovo Vergani (1845), a grammar in Italian for the study of English, 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 and running through 1858. In 1868 he served, along with Samuel Neil, as one of the two vice-presidents of the newly established British Literary Union. In 1870 he held the position of Official Translator of Modern Languages in London.

He died in December 1888 in Kensington.

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.