Page:Man in the Panther's Skin.djvu/18

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manuscript, and to Professor Nicholas Marr, of the University of St. Petersburg, who has supplied additional material, and has permitted the publication, in the Appendix, of an English version of his Russian rendering of the obscure introductory and concluding quatrains, and of other passages. Helpers will find sufficient recompense in the thought that they are co-workers with one who loved Rust'haveli and Georgia.

Last of all, this book, designed to be the translator's chief work, should contain some notice of her life. She was born in London on November 26, 1869; died at Bucharest on December 7, 1909; and was buried at Sevenoaks. She began the study of Georgian, as her learned predecessor, M.-F. Brosset, had done, with an alphabet and a Gospel, and when she had made some progress it was his grammar and dictionary she first used; as a girl of twenty she chose this as the idea of her life. She was already equipped with a sound education, and during her varied, busy career she not only used French, German, Italian, Russian, and Roumanian in the daily concerns of the household and the amenities of social intercourse, but applied herself to those tongues and their literatures. From early womanhood she spent nearly all her time abroad—in Italy, France, and North Africa, comparatively short periods; in Hayti over a year; in Roumania three years; in various parts of the Russian dominions about ten years. Her published works are—Georgian Folk-Tales; London, 1894 (D. Nutt). The Hermit, a legend by Prince Ilia Chavchavadze (in verse); London, 1895 (B. Quaritch). Life of St. Nino; Oxford, 1900 (Clarendon Press). She left The Man in the Panther's Skin and other translations in manuscript.

A letter to Ilia Chavchavadze, asking permission to translate The Hermit, was printed in his newspaper Iveria of September 8 (O.S.), 1894, as a model of style, and led to a revival of interest in their language and literature among the younger generation. On her arrival in Transcaucasia in December, 1894, she was received