Henry Frith

Henry Frith
Born(1840-05-02)2 May 1840
Dublin, Ireland
Died12 October 1917(1917-10-12) (aged 77)
Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England
Occupations
  • Engineer
  • translator
  • writer
  • editor
  • civil servant
Years active1875–1913
Notable workTranslations of Jules Verne

Henry Frith (2 May 1840 – 12 October 1917) was an Irish engineer and writer who translated the works of Jules Verne and others, as well as creating his own works. His prolific output amounted to nearly 200 works between translations, novels, and instructional titles.

Early life

Frith was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 2 May 1840, at 2 Upper Leeson Street. He was the second son of Henry Frith and Frances (née Winter). Of his four siblings, only two, his eldest and youngest brothers, survived to adulthood. His father worked in the Dublin Ordnance Office. Frith was educated at Cheltenham College and entered Trinity College Dublin on 1 July 1857 to train as a Civil Engineer. After applying for a Civil Service post, he was appointed to the War Office in London, where he remained until 1875 when he retired with a pension and began his literary efforts.

Frith married Mary Lowndes (April 1844 – 7 June 1928) on 25 May 1869 in Hove, Sussex, England. Mary was the third daughter of William Lowndes (1807–1864) and Marth Sutton (1807–1890). The Lowndes were wealthy, being the ground landlords for Knightsbridge in London. When Mary's step-brother, William Lowndes, (1834–1905) died, his estate was valued at £452,310. He left £7,000 to each of his three half sisters, and his real estate (the Knightsbridge ground rents, and the Bury house) together with the residue of his personal estate to Mary's eldest son, William Frederick.

The couple had six children:

Works

Frith originally trained as an engineer, and worked for the War Office until 1875 when he qualified for a pension. The way in which he described himself changed over time:

Frith's work, with nearly 200 books to his credit, consists of:

He also produced some albums and books that do not fit easily into these four categories. Frith freely made use of other people's works in his non-fiction , some of them being encyclopedic in tone, briefly covering a wide range of issues related to a topic. In his preface to Ascents and Adventures: A Record of Hardy Mountaineering in Every Quarter of the Globe, he writes: "The following pages do not profess to be a record of our own personal adventures. They include many experiences of a varied character in Europe, Asia, and America; but while making use of the narratives and notes of more experienced climbers, without copying their work, we have in some cases embodied the spirit of it, and fixed it in our pages for the amusement, and it may be for the instruction, of young people."

Translations

The first of Frith's works that is catalogued at the British Library is an 1875 translation of Les Braves Gens by Jules Girardin. This was translated as The Adventures of Johnny Ironsides in English. Frith followed this in 1876 with a translation of two of Jules Verne's stories: Une Ville flottante and Les Forceurs de blocus, as A Floating City and the The Blockade Runners.

Frith translated another five works by Verne:

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction suggests that Frith may have translated Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon, but neither Wolcott nor Evans include it in their lists.

Wolcott rated Frith's translation of Vingt mille lieues sur les mers as a translation of particular merit, and said of him: "With his scientific background, he understood much of what Verne had written, and this translation has remained one of the best of the time with only minor deletions from the original text."

Frith also translated other works by:

Novels

Most of Frith's novels fall into the boys' adventure category. The list of titles is not meant to be comprehensive, but to show to the reader the range of Frith's output. The titles include:

Entertaining non-fiction

His entertaining non-fiction was mostly aimed at a juvenile audience. The titles include:

Instructional non-fiction

Frith's instructional non-fiction has been quite long-lived, with new editions, sometimes revised, long after his death. The titles include:

Death

Frith died on 12 October 1917, aged 78. He was still living at Shenstone House, Amersham Common. He was survived by his wife Mary, who administered his estate of £2,335. The Buckinghamshire Examiner expressed sympathy for his son, William Frederick. Mary survived Frith by another 11 years, dying on 7 June 1928.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Wolcott, Norman (1 March 2005). "Jules Verne Mondial: The Victorian Translators of Verne: Mercier to Metcalfe". ibiblio.org. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  2. ↑ "Births". Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent (Thursday 7 May 1840): 3. 7 May 1840.
  3. ↑ "Births". Saunders's Newsletter (Friday 31 May 1839): 3. 31 May 1839.
  4. ↑ "Births". Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail (Saturday 12 August 1843): 7. 12 August 1843.
  5. ↑ "Births". Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail (Saturday 29 August 1846): 3. 29 August 1846.
  6. ↑ "Births". Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent (Thursday 13 April 1848). 13 April 1848.
  7. 1 2 J Murphy (19 October 2017). Haunted Ancestral Homes. Lulu.com. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-244-34082-7. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  8. ↑ "The Romance of a Great Estate: How the Lowndes Property was Acquired". Buckinghamshire Examiner (Friday 24 November 1905): 8. 24 November 1905.
  9. ↑ "Wills and Bequests". Illustrated London News (Saturday 23 June 1906): 39. 23 June 1906.
  10. ↑ "Whitehall, July 30, 1906". The London Gazette (27981). London: 5659. 17 August 1906. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  11. ↑ "The will, dated the 20th June, 1904". South Bucks Standard (Friday 15 June 1906): 5. 15 June 1906.
  12. ↑ "Henry Frith". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 28 October 2019. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  13. ↑ Frith, Henry (1884). "Preface". Ascents and Adventures: a record of hardy mountaineering in every quarter of the globe. London. pp. v. hdl:2027/yale.39002030936893. Retrieved 28 February 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  14. 1 2 Evans, Arthur B. (1 March 2005). "A Bibliography of Jules Verne's English Translations". Science Fiction Studies. 32 (95): 105–141. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  15. 1 2 "The late Mr Henry Frith". Buckinghamshire Examiner (Friday 19 October 1917): 2. 19 October 1917.