Anne Bushby, translator of Hans Christian Andersen

Abstract

In his 1954 book on Hans Christian Andersen, Elias Bredsdorff devotes a chapter to the translator Mrs Bushby, but criticizes her work severely.1 His point of departure is the traditional academic one that a translation's 'faithfulness' to the original is the only yardstick for an assessment of its worth. In this article, however, I shall argue that Mrs Bushby is in many ways an interesting translator, who did not see Andersen as simply a children's writer, and that some of her divergences from Andersen's text are not mistakes but deliberate adaptations for the benefit of her audience in Victorian Britain.