# Clara Bell > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Clara_Bell > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Clara_Bell.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Bell > Source revision: 1319670342 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|English translator}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}} '''Clara Courtenay Bell''' ({{nee}} Poynter; 1835–1927) was an English [translator](/source/translator) fluent in [French](/source/French_language), [German](/source/German_language), [Danish](/source/Danish_language), [Dutch](/source/Dutch_language), [Italian](/source/Italian_language), [Norwegian](/source/Norwegian_language), [Russian](/source/Russian_language), and [Spanish](/source/Spanish_language),''The Illustrated American'': 22 November 1890, p. 500''The Author: A Monthly Magazine for Literary Workers'': Vol. 2: 15 November 1890, p. 170 noted for her translations of works by [Balzac](/source/Balzac), [Casanova](/source/Casanova), [Huysmans](/source/J.-K._Huysmans), [Ibsen](/source/Ibsen), and [Maupassant](/source/Maupassant), as well as by [Louis Couperus](/source/Louis_Couperus), [Georg Ebers](/source/Georg_Ebers), [Benito Pérez Galdós](/source/Benito_P%C3%A9rez_Gald%C3%B3s), [Ernst Haeckel](/source/Ernst_Haeckel), [Pierre Loti](/source/Pierre_Loti), [Helmuth von Moltke](/source/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Elder), and others.{{Cite web|title=Results for 'kw:"translated by clara bell"' > 'Book' > 'English' [WorldCat.org]|url=https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=kw:%22translated+by+clara+bell%22&fq=x0:book+%3E+ln:eng&dblist=638&qt=sort&se=as&sd=asc&qt=sort_as_asc|access-date=2021-11-02|website=worldcat.org|language=en}} She was educated in France, where she became fluent in French and German; she did not acquire her knowledge of the other languages until after her fortieth birthday. She spent most of her life in London. Clara Poynter was born in [Westminster](/source/Westminster) to architect [Ambrose Poynter](/source/Ambrose_Poynter) and Emma Forster; her brother was Sir [Edward Poynter](/source/Edward_Poynter), a director of the [National Gallery](/source/National_Gallery). She was a distant relation of [Edward Burne-Jones](/source/Edward_Burne-Jones) and [Rudyard Kipling](/source/Rudyard_Kipling). She was married to banker Robert Courtenay Bell (1816–1896), with whom she had six children. One of her sons was Charles Francis Bell, who oversaw the Fine Art Department of the [Ashmolean Museum](/source/Ashmolean_Museum) in [Oxford](/source/Oxford){{Cite web |url=http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/bellcf.htm |title=Charles Francis Bell on The Dictionary of Art Historians |access-date=2012-04-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415084431/http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/bellcf.htm |archive-date=2012-04-15 |url-status=dead }} and another was Edmund Hamilton Bell, first curator of the [John G. Johnson](/source/John_G._Johnson) Collection at what is now the [Philadelphia Museum of Art](/source/Philadelphia_Museum_of_Art).{{Cite web |title=Bell, Edward Hamilton {{!}} Dictionary of Art Historians |url=https://arthistorians.info/belle |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=arthistorians.info}} Under the direction of [George Saintsbury](/source/George_Saintsbury), Bell, [Ellen Marriage](/source/Ellen_Marriage), and [Rachel Scott](/source/Rachel_Scott_(women's_education_reformer)) were responsible for translating the vast majority of Balzac's ''[Human Comedy](/source/La_Com%C3%A9die_Humaine)'' into English,''The Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English,'' Vol. 1: p. 101 superseding earlier translations that had generally been regarded as stilted. The low pay that translators received at that time required Bell and her colleagues to complete work quickly, but her translations have nonetheless been noted for their close adherence to the [source text](/source/source_text)s, and their high degree of readability.''[The Yale Literary Magazine](/source/The_Yale_Literary_Magazine)'', Vol. 53, No.6: March 1888, p.280 According to an entry in ''Book News'' in 1890: "The productions [i.e. translations] she values most are her scientific works, much of which she did for [Professor Thistleton Dyer](/source/William_Turner_Thiselton-Dyer) and other English botanists, and for [Professor Richter](/source/Jean_Paul_Richter)'s great work of the [notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci](/source/List_of_works_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci), until then unpublished. This had to be done from the original MSS [manuscripts] in the cramped and minute handwriting of [the great artist](/source/Leonardo_da_Vinci), all of which, to add to the difficulty, was written backwards."{{Cite journal |last=Hawkins |first=A.L. |date=1890 |title=Asked and answered |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_book-news-monthly_1890-10_9_98/page/44/mode/2up |journal=Book News |issue=98 |page=44}} {{wikisource|works=or}} ==References== {{Reflist}} ==External links== * {{Gutenberg author | id=1801}} * {{FadedPage|id=Bell, Clara|name=Clara Bell (translator)|author=yes}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Clara Bell}} * {{Librivox author |id=6458}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Clara}} Category:1835 births Category:1927 deaths Category:Dutch–English translators Category:English translators Category:French–English translators Category:German–English translators Category:People from Westminster Category:British literary translators --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Clara Bell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Bell) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Bell?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.