ANNA

See also:

• ANNA SWANWICK (1813-1899)

SWANWICK (1813-1899)  , English writer and philanthropist, was the youngest daughter of John Swanwick of Liverpool, and was born on the 22nd of June 1813 . She was educated partly at home and partly at one of the fashionable boarding-schools of the day, where she received the usual education of accomplishments . Dissatisfied with her own intellectual attainments she went in 1839 to Berlin, where she took lessons in German, Greek and Hebrew . On her return to London she continued these pursuits, aloug with the study of mathematics . In 1843 appeared her first volume of translations, Selections from the Dramas of Goethe and Schiller . In 1847 she published a translation of Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans; this was followed in 185o by Faust, Tasso, Iphigenie and Egmont . In 1878 she published a complete translation of both parts of Faust, which appeared with Retsch's illustrations . It passed through several editions, was included in Bohn's series of translations, and ranks as a standard work . It was at the suggestion of Baron Bunsen that she first tried her hand at translation from the Greek . In 1865 she published a blank verse translation of Aeschylus's Trilogy, and in 1873, a complete edition of Aeschylus, which appeared with Flaxman's illustrations . Miss Swanwick is chiefly known by her translations, but she also published some original work . In 1886 appeared Books, our Best Friends and Deadliest Foes; in 1888, An Utopian Dream and How it may be Realized; in 1892, Poets, the Interpreters of their Age; and in 1894, Evolution and the Religion of the Future .

Miss Swanwick was interested in many of the social and philanthropic movements of her day . In 1861 she signed John

Stuart Mill's petition to parliament for the political enfranchisement of women . She helped in the higher education movement, took part in the foundation of Queen's and Bedford Colleges, and continued to take a sympathetic interest in the movement which led to the opening of the universities to women . Her work was acknowledged by the university of Aberdeen, which bestowed on her the degree of LL.D . She died in November 1899 . See Memoir, by Miss Bruce (1904) .