Constance Garnett (née Black) 1862 – 1946
Translator of Russian literature.
19 December 1862 – 17 December 1946
Education
Initially home schooled.
Attended Brighton High School.
1879 Won scholarship to Newnham College to study classics and mathematics. Studied there till 1883 but could not receive a BA degree because she was a woman. (women not awarded degrees at Cambridge until 1947)
Some Key Achievements and Interests
1888-1889 Librarian of newly opened People’s Palace Library on the Mile End Road, East London.
Taught Greek and Latin to Booth’s children.
Involved in social activism and contributed to Charles Booth’s Labour and the Life of the People.
Frequented the British Museum Reading Room for research and networking.
1992 Learned Russian while pregnant with her son and started translation work which became her main focus. Mentored by the Russian refugees F.V. Volkovsky and Stepniak (Sergey Mikhailovich Kravchinsky).
For 35 years translated and published work by writers including Stepniak, Goncharov, Tolstoy, Ostrovsky, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, producing over 70 volumes of translations and introducing the English speaking readers to Russia literature.
Member of the Fabian Society for a period.
Issues
Suffered from poor health all her life. Was short-sighted and suffered from sight loss as she aged.
Mother died when she was 13 and was brought up by siblings. Her father was also a difficult man.
Initially took on translation work to support her family.
Connection to Bloomsbury
British Museum Reading Room.
Female Networks
Her sister Clementina Black, Annie Besant.
British Museum networks.
Russian émigrés including Fanny Stepniak.
Fabian and socialist networks.
Writings/Publications include:
Article New Career for Women: Librarians (detailing her work at the People’s Palace Library) published in The Queen, the Lady’s Newspaper.
1894 translation of Ivan Goncharov’s A Common Story.
Further reading
Constance Garnett – Royal Society of Literature (rsliterature.org)
Garnett, Constance (1862–1946) | Encyclopedia.com
Bernstein, Susan David; Roomscape: Women Writers in the British Museum from George Eiot to Virginia Woolf. Edinburgh, 2013.