A study of the life and works of S.S. Koteliansky with particular reference to unpublished correspondence at the Alexander Turnbull Library

Abstract

Samuel Solomonovich Koteliansky left the Ukraine for England in 1911 and spent the remaining forty-four years of his life in London, where he worked chiefly as a freelance translator. Except for a few translations of plays by Chekhov, Koteliansky's contribution to the world of letters consists largely of renderings of shorter works: philosophical writings, memoirs, selected correspondence, short stories and the like. These include works by such important authors as Bunin, Chekhov, Gorky, V.V.Rozanov and Lev Tolstoy. This thesis considers the scope of Koteliansky's work and examines the quality of a number of his translations. It also briefly surveys the early years of his life in Russia, and goes on to discuss in greater depth his friendships and working alliances with a gallery of British literary and artistic personalities, chiefly: Leonard and Virginia Woolf, D.H.Lawrence, E.M.Forster, T.S.Eliot, James Stephens, John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield. Three sets of material from the Alexander Turnbull Library are reproduced here: (i) two letters from Koteliansky to Katherine Mansfield, both dated 1919; (ii) twenty-two letters to Sydney Waterlow (diplomat, Bloomsbury figure and distant relative of Mansfield) from the period 1922-1929; (iii) eleven letters to Ida Baker ("L.M."), ten of which span the years 1919-1937, the final piece of correspondence being dated 1952. Each group of transcripts is accompanied by detailed footnotes and a preface, which together serve to illustrate the nature of the relationship between the correspondents and to set the letters in the context of Koteliansky's personal history. There is also a chronology of his life and works, which summarises the factual information to be found in the thesis as a whole. In addition, a "Who's Who in the Letters" not only offers concise biographical details of the people most frequently encountered in this work, but also touches briefly on the interaction of their lives with that of Koteliansky. Finally there are three bibliographies: - of Manuscripts Consulted, - of Published Works Consulted, - of Koteliansky's Translations which appeared in Book Form.