Language: Polish

Jane Eyre translation: 1921

Polish novelist, translator, compiler and editor of children’s literature active during the Interwar period. She was affiliated with the literary circles in Lviv, then part of Poland, as well as the publishing press Kultura i sztuka [Culture and Art] run by Hermana Stachel.

She translated multiple books by Karl May, Jacob Grimm’s fairy tales and Rudolf Raspe’s tall tales about Baron Münchhausen. She also compiled and edited several books with fantastical tales, most notably Świat czarów [The World of Wonders] featuring Hans Christian Andresen, Charles Dickens, and Rudyard Kipling. Her novels focused on individual experiences of Polish women, e.g. Paniątko [Little Miss], Sielanka aktorka [The Idyll of an Actress], Czwarte krzesło [The Fourth Chair], Idealistka [The Idealist Woman].

Her version of Jane Eyre for juvenile audience with illustrations was entitled Sierota z Lowood [An Orphan from Lowood] and first published in Lviv in 1921, but then also printed by Warsaw and Chrzanów presses.

Text by Kasia Szymanska

Sources: Irena Gruchała, ‘Herman Stachel – lwowski wydawca piśmiennictwa popularnego’, Folia Toruniensia 18 (2018), pp. 35-56; Dagmara Hadyna, ‘A Relayed Translation. Looking for the Source Text of the First Polish Translation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre’, Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 11.2 (2016),  pp. 73–81; Monika Roszkowska, ‘The Evolution of Translation Standards as Illustrated by the History of Polish Translations of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë,’ Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies 2 (2013), pp. 43-57.