H. T. Lowe-Porter (1877–1963)

Helen Porter was a niece of Charlotte Endymion Porter, editor of the Boston literary magazine Poet Love. She attended Wells College in Aurora, New York. In 1911, while studying in Bern, Switzerland, she married Elias Avery Lowe, an American scholar, with whom she had three daughters, and took the married name Lowe-Porter. The couple moved to Princeton, New Jersey when Elias Lowe joined the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study. Lowe-Porter is most significant for being the designated sole translator of the works of Thomas Mann for his USA publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, taking 1922-1951, and introducing him to the English-speaking world. She also translated works by other German authors, including Hermann Sudermann, Frank Thiess, Hermann Broch and Arthur Schnitzler, as well as various translations for Albert Einstein. Her own blank-verse play Abdication (1948) was performed on the Dublin stage and later issued as a book in 1950.