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{{Short description|American translator (1876–1963)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter
| image = Helen Tracy Lowe Porter 1920.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Lowe-Porter in 1920
| birth_name = Helen Tracy Porter
| birth_date = June 15, 1876
| birth_place = [[Towanda, Pennsylvania]], U.S.
| death_date = {{dda|1963|4|26|1876|6|15}}
| death_place = [[Princeton, New Jersey]], U.S.
| death_cause =
| other_names =
| known_for = Translator of [[Thomas Mann]]
| education =[[Wells College]], Class of 1898<ref name=pastandpromise>{{cite book|chapter=Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, 1876–1963|last1=Lewis|first1=Jayne E.|pages=346–347|title=Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women|collaboration=The Women's Project of New Jersey Incorporated|year=1997|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=0-8156-0418-1}}</ref>
| employer =
| occupation =
| spouse = [[Elias Avery Lowe]]
| partner =
| children = 3
| parents =
| relatives = [[James Fawcett]] (son in-law)<br />[[Charlotte Johnson Wahl]] (granddaughter)<br />[[Edmund Fawcett]] (grandson)<br />[[Boris Johnson|Boris]], [[Rachel Johnson|Rachel]] & [[Jo Johnson]] (great{{nbhyph}}grandchildren)
}}
'''Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter''' (''{{nee}}'' '''Porter'''; June 15, 1876 – April 26, 1963)<ref>pp. 428-429, ''Notable American Women: The Modern Period: a Biographical Dictionary'', Barbara Sicherman, Carol Hurd Green, Harvard University Press, 1980; {{ISBN|0674627334}}.</ref> was an American translator and writer, best known for translating almost all of the works of [[Thomas Mann]] for their first publication in English.<ref name=Richardson>{{cite book|last=Robertson|first=Ritchie|author-link=Ritchie Robertson|title=The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann| publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2002|pages=235–47|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s2VRTk60m9YC&q=Helen+Tracy+Lowe-Porter&pg=PA235|isbn=0-521-65370-3}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Helen Tracy Porter was the daughter of Clara (''née'' Holcombe) and Henry Clinton Porter. She was the niece of [[Charlotte Endymion Porter]], editor of ''Poet Lore'', a poetry journal, and an expert on [[Shakespeare]] and [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning|Elizabeth]] and [[Robert Browning]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Porter__Charlotte_Endymion.html |title=Pennsylvania Literary Biographies, Pennsylvania State University |access-date=December 7, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515230329/http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Porter__Charlotte_Endymion.html |archive-date=May 15, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> She completed early schooling in native [[Towanda, Pennsylvania]] and attended [[Wells College]] in [[Aurora, Cayuga County, New York|Aurora, New York]], graduating in 1898 as a member of [[Phi Beta Kappa]].<ref name=pastandpromise/> She worked with her aunt to prepare works of [[English literature]] for republication.<ref name=pastandpromise/> She married the paleographer [[Elias Avery Lowe]] in 1911. The couple lived in [[Oxford]]; after 1937, their residence was in [[Princeton, New Jersey]]. Their great-grandson is [[Boris Johnson]], the former [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gulfnews.com/world/boris-day-all-you-need-to-know-about-britains-new-prime-minister-boris-johnson-1.1563826925338|title=Boris day: All you need to know about Britain's new Prime Minister Boris Johnson|website=gulfnews.com|date=July 24, 2019 |language=en|access-date=August 22, 2019}}</ref>

==Career==
For more than two decades, Lowe-Porter had exclusive rights to translate the works of [[Thomas Mann]] from German into English. She was granted these rights in 1925 by [[Alfred A. Knopf (person)|Alfred A. Knopf]].<ref>"Blanche and Alfred Knopf ... induce[d] Mann to take Mrs. Lowe as translator ..." ''In Another Language: A Record of the Thirty-Year Relationship between Thomas Mann and His English Translator, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter'' (1966), by John C. Thirlwall. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf (pp. 10-11).</ref>

In her essay "On Translating Thomas Mann", Lowe-Porter discussed translating Mann's novels, and expressed some thoughts on translating generally. She wrote, for example, that in translating the second volume of Mann's Joseph series, ''Young Joseph'', she had "been forced—since the English version was for both markets [British and American]—to emasculate the style, in some degree, taking care to write only what would be acceptable literary usage on both sides of the ocean".<ref>"On Translating Thomas Mann," in Thirlwall, ''In Another Language'', p. 191. Parts of this essay were published earlier as ″Translating Thomas Mann″ in ''Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures'' (Volume 9, Issue 2 (1956)). See Thirlwall, p. xviii, n.3.</ref> She also said, in her note to her translation of ''Der Zauberberg'' (''The Magic Mountain''):
<blockquote>[T]he violet has to be cast into the crucible, the organic work of art to be remoulded in another tongue.... [S]ince in the creative act word and thought are indivisible, the task was seen to be one before which artists shrink and logical minds recoil.<ref>Translator's note to ''The Magic Mountain''. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1927 (quoted in Thirlwall, ''In Another Language'', p. 15).</ref></blockquote>
She wrote an original play, ''Abdication'', which received its first production in [[Dublin]] in September 1948.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1948/09/28/archives/abdication-bows-in-dublin-theatre-mrs-h-t-loweporters-play-produced.html|title=''Abdication'' Bows In Dublin Theatre; Mrs. H. T. Lowe-Porter's Play Produced by Hilton Edwards - MacLiammoir Tops Cast|work=New York Times|author=Hugh Smith|date=September 28, 1948|access-date=October 25, 2008}}</ref> It was "a thinly-veiled portrait of [[Edward VIII]]'s dethroning" and was published by Alfred A. Knopf.<ref>Celia McGee, [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/books/booksupdate/mrs-lowe-porter-jo-salas.html The Secret of Thomas Mann’s Translator]". ''The New York Times'', January 30, 2024.</ref>

==Thomas Mann translations==
Lowe-Porter's translations of Thomas Mann works include the following (dates in brackets refer to the German publication, the dates after to the English-language translations).
* ''[[Buddenbrooks]]'' [1901] 1924
* ''[[The Magic Mountain]]'' [1924] 1927
* ''[[Death in Venice]]'' [1912] 1928
* ''[[Mario and the Magician]]'' [1930] 1931
* ''[[Joseph and His Brothers]]'', comprising:
**I. ''The Tales of Jacob'' [1933] 1934
**II. ''Young Joseph'' [1934] 1935
**III. ''Joseph in Egypt'' [1936] 1938
**IV. ''Joseph the Provider'' [1943] 1944
* ''Stories of Three Decades'' 1936
* ''[[The Beloved Returns]]'' [1939] 1940
* ''[[The Transposed Heads]]'' [1940] 1941
* ''Essays of Three Decades'' 1947
* ''[[Doctor Faustus (novel)|Doctor Faustus]]'' [1947] 1948
* ''[[The Holy Sinner]]'' [1951] 1951
* ''A Sketch of My Life'' [1930] 1960

==Critical reaction==
For decades, Lowe-Porter's translations of Mann were the only versions that existed in the English-speaking world, aside from [[Herman George Scheffauer]]'s. Mann expressed his appreciation to Lowe-Porter for her work, nicknaming her "die Lowe", but also added the caveat, "insofar as my linguistic knowledge suffices". Critic [[Theodore Ziolkowski]] said of Lowe-Porter's translation of Mann's ''Buddenbrooks'':

<blockquote>Lowe-Porter provided a valuable service by making Mann's novel initially accessible to the English and American publics.<ref name="Ziolkowski">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/21/reviews/mann-buddenbrooks.html|title=The Earthier Side of the Buddenbrooks|work=New York Times|author=Theodore Ziolkowski|author-link=Theodore Ziolkowski|date=April 18, 1993|access-date=2008-10-24}}</ref></blockquote>

Other commentaries on her translations have included the following:
<blockquote>The Lowe-Porter translations of Thomas Mann, despite occasional inaccuracies almost inevitable in works of such length and complexity, convey the ironic and pyrotechnical style of the original with great effectiveness.<ref>William Arrowsmith & [[Roger Shattuck]], eds. ''The Craft & Context of Translation, a Symposium.'' University of Texas Press. Austin, 1961.</ref>

Despite minor inaccuracies, misreadings, and possible errors of judgment (to which all translators are subject, whatever they may say), Lowe-Porter's translations are widely beloved and have become classics in their own right, to stand beside [[Constance Garnett]]'s Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and [[C. K. Scott Moncrieff|Scott Moncrieff]]'s Proust. She is indisputably, in quantity as in quality, one of the great translators of our time.<ref>Viktor Wakovsky: ''Artwork, Artifice, Forgery: The Translator's Craft.'' Fratelli Verlag, San Francisco, 1983.</ref>

Thomas Mann and Proust were lucky in their translators.<ref>[[Jean Cocteau]], ''Diary of an Unknown'', New York: Paragon House, 1988.</ref></blockquote>Though early reviewers were generally impressed by the relative readability of Lowe-Porter's English and by the sheer scale of the task, from the 1950s on doubts were expressed about the accuracy of the translations, culminating in Timothy Buck's study which led him to conclude that they constituted "grossly distorted and diminished versions"<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00robe|url-access=limited|last=Robertson|first=Ritchie|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2002|isbn=9780521653107|pages=[https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00robe/page/n269 244]}}</ref> of Mann's work, and that "the loss, not only of accuracy but also of quality, is inestimable."<ref name=":0" /> Not only was her grasp of German so shaky that she made countless elementary errors of comprehension, but she also made frequent omissions and additions and unnecessarily simplified Mann's characteristic complex syntax.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation|last=France|first=Peter|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2000|isbn=0198183593|pages=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordguidetolit00pete/page/333 333]|url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordguidetolit00pete/page/333}}</ref> A review of [[John E. Woods (translator)|John E. Woods]]' translation of Mann's ''Buddenbrooks'' states that, in her translation of the novel, Lowe-Porter "leveled Mann's colorful variety of speech into a uniformly even style, in certain cases simply omitting passages. As a result, much of the novel's humor was lost."<ref>[https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/21/reviews/mann-buddenbrooks.html Theodore Ziolkowski, "The Earthier Side of the Buddenbrooks," ''New York Times'', April 18, 1993.]</ref>

A new assessment of the English translations of Thomas Mann within the framework of modern descriptive-analytical translation studies has been provided by David Horton.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Thomas Mann in English: A Study in Literary Translation|last=Horton|first=David P.|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2013|isbn=9781441167989|location=New York}}</ref> Horton seeks to move beyond an exclusively error-based evaluation of literary translation, examines various salient dimensions of versions by Lowe-Porter, [[David Luke]], and [[John E. Woods (translator)|John E. Woods]], and demonstrates that Lowe-Porter's approach to translation was in keeping with the practice prevalent at the time.<ref>[https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/tal.2014.0158 "Like other translators of her generation, Lowe-Porter strove to become invisible, to produce a text that read as if it had been written in English. Her willingness to rewrite Mann in this way was fully in keeping with common practices of the time." Todd Kontje, review of David Horton, ''Thomas Mann in English'', in ''Translation and Literature'', vol. 23, issue 2, pp. 292-297, quotation at 294 (July 2014)]</ref> A review of Horton's book concludes, "Not the least of Horton's accomplishments is to rehabilitate [Lowe-Porter's] reputation...."<ref>Kontje, p. 297.</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Gledhill, John Richard Morton. ''Strategies in Translation: A Comparison of the Helen Lowe-Porter and David Luke Translations of Thomas Mann’s 'Tonio Kröger', 'Tristan' and 'Der Tod in Venedig' within the Context of Contemporary Translation Theory''. English translation by the author of a 2003 Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Erfurt. [https://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/dbt_derivate_00009503/front.html]
* Salas, Jo. ''Mrs. Lowe-Porter''. Washington, DC: Jackleg Press, 2024. {{ISBN|978-1956907056}} Biographical novel about Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter.
* Thirlwall, John C. ''In Another Language: A Record of the Thirty-Year Relationship between Thomas Mann and His English Translator, Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter''. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.

==External links==
* {{gutenberg author|56885}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Lowe-Porter, H. T.|name=Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter|author=yes}}
* {{Librivox author |id=16427}}

{{Boris Johnson}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowe-Porter, H. T.}}
[[Category:1876 births]]
[[Category:1963 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American translators]]
[[Category:20th-century American women dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Family of Boris Johnson]]
[[Category:German–English translators]]
[[Category:American literary translators]]
[[Category:People from Towanda, Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:Translators of Thomas Mann]]
[[Category:Writers from Princeton, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Dramatists and playwrights from Pennsylvania]]

Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter - Revision history

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