Christian Felix Weisse the Translator: Cultural Transfer and Literary Entrepreneurship in the Enlightenment

Christian Felix Weisse (1726-1804) is best known as a dramatist and influential children’s writer of the Enlightenment period. This is the first book to explore his singularly extensive output as a literary translator, investigating the conditions which allowed Weisse to become the most prolific German translator of English literature in the eighteenth century, a popular translator of French drama, and an influential editor and ‘entrepreneur’ of the translations of others. Drawing on previously unpublished correspondence, the study examines Weisse’s wide-ranging professional networks as a cultural mediator of European significance. Special attention is paid to his role in the German reception of Ossian, his introduction of English children’s literature to Germany, his translations of popular prose, and the intersections between his original writing and translations.

Tom Zille trained as a bookseller in Leipzig, and is currently reading for a PhD in Modern and Contemporary English Literature at the University of Cambridge. He was until recently an editor at the German literary audio archive, Dichterlesen.net, at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.