John Stevens (translator)

John Stevens (c. 1662 – 1726)[1] was an English captain, Hispanist and translator. He is known for his translation of Don Quixote in 1700.[2]

Life

He was born in London, where his father was a page to Catherine of Braganza, and was educated by Benedictines at Douai, around 1675. He was bilingual, speaking Spanish from infancy, presumably with his mother. He served in the forces sent to quell Monmouth's Rebellion, and went with Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon to Dublin in 1685. He then through the Hyde connection became a tax official at Welshpool.[1] Roman catholic and Jacobite, he fought in the Irish Williamite War and was at the siege of Limerick.[1] [3]

Before 1695 Stevens had settled again in London. From that time till his death he was engaged in translations, and historical and antiquarian compilations. He was editor of the British Mercury from 1712 to 1715. He died on 27 October 1726.[1][3]

Works

Stevens's first publication, an abridged translation in three volumes of Manuel de Faria y Sousa's Portuguesa Asia, appeared in 1695, with a dedication to Catharine of Braganza. In 1698 he produced a translation and continuation from 1640 of the same author's History of Portugal. His English version of Don Francisco Manuel de Mello's The Government of a Wife was issued in 1697. It was dedicated to Don Luis da Cunha, the Portuguese envoy. In the same year Stevens published a version of Quevedo's Fortune in her Wits, or the Hour of all Men. He issued in 1707 a translation of the collected comedies of Quevedo, which was republished in 1709 and in 1742. A collection of Spanish works translated and adapted by him appeared in the same year under the title of The Spanish Libertines. It consisted of Perez's Justina, the Country Jilt; Celestina, the Bawd of Madrid, by F. de Rojas; Gonzales, the most arch and comical of scoundrels, by himself; and D'Avila's comedy, An Evening's Intrigue, adapted by the translator.

Stevens tried a revision of Thomas Shelton's English version of Don Quixote (second edition London, 1706, in 2 vols). It was dedicated to Sir Thomas Hanmer, and was illustrated by copperplates engraved from the Brussels edition. Stevens also translated in 1705 the so-called continuation of Don Quixote made by Alonzo Fernandez de Avellaneda, which had not before appeared in English. The version was prepared from the French of Le Sage.[3]

A rendering by Stevens of Quevedo's Pablo de Segovia the Spanish Sharper formed the basis of the Edinburgh version of 1798, and was reprinted in vol. ii of The Romancist and Novelist's Library, edited by W. C. Hazlitt, in 1841. Henry Edward Watts used it for his edition of 1892. Stevens also translated from the Spanish works of history and travel, as well as Quintana's The most Entertaining History of Hippolyto and Aminta, 2nd edit. 1729. His rendering of Mariana's History of Spain appeared in 1699; and of Sandoval's History of Charles V in 1703. In 1715 he translated Texeira's Spanish version of Mírkhánd's History of Persia. His translation of Herrera's General History of the Vast Continent and Islands of America, commonly called the West Indies, issued in 6 vols. 1725–1726, and reprinted in 1740, was a free version. From Spanish authors Stevens also mainly compiled his New Collection of Voyages and Travels, published in two volumes in 1711 (it originally appeared in monthly parts), and republished in 1719.[3]

Worksop Priory, engraving from Antient Abbeys (1722)

Stevens was also an antiquary. In 1718 he published anonymously a translation and abridgment of William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum. In 1722 he published a continuation of the Monasticon in 2 vols., as The History of the Antient Abbeys, Monasteries, Hospitals, Cathedrals, &c., illustrated with copperplates (and with additions from Hugh Todd).[4] As a further continuation of the Monasticon Anglicanum Stevens issued anonymously in 1722, his Monasticon Hibernicum (a translation, with additions and alterations, of Louis Augustin Alémand's Histoire Monastique d'Irlande 1690). Stevens also translated Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. The rendering is very literal; some of the notes were used in William Hurst's version, published in 1814. Stevens's translation formed the basis of that of John Allen Giles (1840), and of that issued in Bohn's Antiquarian Library (1847).[3]

From the French Stevens translated in 1712 for Bernard Lintot parts of "Dupin", probably Louis Ellies Dupin's Bibliothèque Universelle des Historiens; and Book iii of P. J. D'Orléans's Histoire des Révolutions en Angleterre sous la Famille des Stuarts, 1722.[3]

Stevens also compiled:[3]

Stevens left manuscripts, which were purchased from his widow by John Warburton.[1]

Selected translations

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Murphy, G. Martin. "Stevens, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26423. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ↑ Don Quixote in translation
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7  "Stevens, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  4. ↑ Mawson, David J. W. "Todd, Hugh". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27490. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Stevens, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 

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