Alfred Richard Allinson (1852–1929) was a British academic, author, and voluminous translator of continental European literature (mostly French, but occasionally Latin, German and Russian) into English. His translations were often published as by A.R. Allinson, Alfred R. Allinson, or Alfred Allinson. He was described as "an elusive literary figure about whom next to nothing is known; the title-pages of his published works are really all we have to go on."

Life

Allinson was born in September 1852 in Newcastle upon Tyne. He attended Lincoln College, Oxford, beginning in 1872, from which he took a Bachelor of Arts degree on 14 June 1877, and a Master of Arts degree in 1882. After graduation he worked as an assistant school master and a librarian. He was also a meteorological hobbyist. He was living in Newcastle, Northumberland in 1901, and in St Thomas, Exeter in Devon in 1911. He died in December 1929 in the London Borough of Hackney.

Career

His early works as a translator included a number of works of French erotica for Paris-based speciality publisher Charles Carrington in the late 1880s and 1890s. Later he branched out into mainstream French literature, including works of various serious and popular authors. He participated with other translators in two ambitious early twentieth century projects to render the works of Anatole France and Alexandre Dumas into English. He also translated a number of children's books and historical works, and, late in his career, a number of volumes of the sensationalist Fantômas detective novels. Allinson's sole work of note as an original author was The Days of the Directoire (1910), a historical and social portrait of France during the period of the French Revolution. His aim in this work was "to present a vivid account of the extraordinary years from 1795 to 1799, when the Five Directors ruled France from the Palace of the Luxembourg; to portray the chief actors of those stirring times; and to draw a picture of the social conditions prevailing in capital and country after the tremendous changes of the Revolution."

Significance

Allinson's primary importance to literature is in helping to introduce French authors Alexandre Dumas and Anatole France to a broad English audience. Several of his translations of their works were the first into English, and a number of these remain the only English versions. In the case of Anatole France, his were the English versions authorised by the original writer.

Selected bibliography

Original works

Edited works

Translated works

Note: publication dates shown are those of the translation, not of publication in the original language.

Works of Alexandre Dumas

Works of Anatole France

Works of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain

Works of other authors