Title: Lyra Germanica: second series: The Christian...
Publisher: London:Longman, Brwn, Green, Longmans, and Roberts.
Publication Date: 1858
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st
First edition. xii, 239 printed pages. Woodcut head and tailpieces and historiated initials. All edges gilt over red. Marbled endpapers.Brown silk bookmarker. Label on paste-down endpaper & dated, ink, ownership signature on preliminary blank page of Emma Laura Willoughby-Osborne. Printed binder's signature on verso of front free endpaper of " Edmonds & Remnants". Extremely slight evidence of occasional foxing. 11.5 x 17 cm. Full contemporary, embossed brown morocco by Edmonds & Remnants. Spine in five compartments with raised bands. Gothic gilt lettering, four triple black ruled lozenge motifs. Upper and lower boards with bevelled edges, and geometric 3d cube pattern within four panels with foliate cornerpieces and double black borders. Some slight wear. Catherine Winkworth (1827-78) was a prototypical feminist, translator and dissenter, befriended by Elizabeth Gaskell and, through shared literary interests (discussing, for example, the sex of Currer Bell), came into contact with Chevalier Bunsen (Prussian Minister and Ambassador), James Martineau, Charles Kingsley, F.D Maurice, Archbishop Hale, and Charlotte Bronte who became her literary circle encouraging her to translate and resulting in her skills as translator being directed towards the naturalisation of German hymns into the devotional and communal life of the church through three volumes: Lyra Germanica (1855), Lyra Germanica Second Series (1858) and The Chorale Book for England (1862). The craftsmanship of translating German hymns not only required an exceptional grasp of the structure and nuances of a vernacular language, having to negotiate the differences in metre, expression, length and rhyming schemes between the two languages, but also knowledge of the theological doctrines and the musical and poetical characteristics of the hymnal. Bunsen praised Catherine's achievement, "her really wonderful translations seem to promise to effect what hitherto has proved impossible namely, to naturalize in England the German Hymns, the most immortal literary fruit of the Reformation". Winkworth was also involved deeply in promoting women's education and has been described as an early feminist. Provenance: Emma Laura Willoughby-Osborne (1835-1905), wife of a colonial officer at Bhopal, near contemporary of Catherine Winkworth and also prototypical feminist and translator. Emma had persuaded the strong-willed and independent-minded female ruler of Bhopal for 21 years, Sikandar (at the time, the only female knight in the British Empire besides Queen Victoria), to write about her milestone Hajj pilgrimage in 1863-4 (no ruler from India had ever before her undertaken the hazardous Hajj pilgrimage to Arabia, let alone a woman ruler). Sikandar wrote her distinctly secular book in Urdu in 1867, died in 1868, and her daughter, Jahan, gave Emma the original manuscript for her to translate in 1869 and publish in 1870 with W.H. Allen ( A Pilgrimage to Makkah ). Emma said "this is the first account written by a lady traveller from the East on her visit to Mecca" & that the Urdu manuscript consisted of "rough notes demanding some arrangement". Emma's assurance that the only license she had allowed herself had been the occasional transposition of a paragraph seems to be an understatement; it appears that the Urdu text was heavily edited. But her role in producing one of the earliest great female travelogues did take a significant step forward in bridging gender gaps in the area of travel writing. Coincidentally, this copy of Lyra Germanica includes on page 107 a hymn "For Travellers, At the Outset of any Journey". Bookseller Inventory # 4329