Lady Charlotte Guest and the Mabinogion; Some Notes on the Work and Its Translator, with Extracts from Her Journals

By David Rhys Phillips, Charlotte Guest

2015

First Published

Number of Pages

1H24M

Audio Length

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Authors

Charlotte Guest (Born Charlotte Bertie) was the daughter of Albemarle Bertie, 9th Earl of Lindsey and his second wife Charlotte Susanna Elizabeth Layard. She married John Josiah Guest, a significantly-older Welsh industrialist and politician and moved to Merthyr Tydfil. The couple had 10 children. Later known as Lady Charlotte Schreiber, she 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. Guest studied a number of languages during her education, and began her work as a translator by translating documents into French for her husband's company. As she became increasingly comfortable with French translation, Guest expanded her work into Welsh literary and mythological works. As her husband's health failed, Charlotte Guest took on more and more responcibility for their company, taking full control upon his death in 1852. In 1855, she married scholar and politician Charles Schreiber and handed control of her company to G.T. Clark. Clark and Guest traveled extensively in Europe, amassing collections of ceramics, fans, games, and cards which she later bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert and British Museums. Guest's best-known translations include The Mabinogion and a number of medieval Welsh poems. Alfred Lord Tennyson used Guest's translation of Geraint and Enid as the basis for his "Idylls of the King."