Alma Strettell

Born in 1853, she was raised in Italy in a family with strong ties to the British church and diplomatic world, and later became part of London's literary scene. She is best remembered as a translator and poet who introduced English readers to work from Greek, Romanian, French, Provençal, German, Norwegian, and other traditions.

Her writing life included original poetry as well as translations, with contributions to late Victorian literary culture and books that drew on European verse and folklore. She also had connections to leading artists and writers of her day, and was painted more than once by John Singer Sargent.

She later became Alma Gertrude Vansittart Harrison and died in 1939. Today, she is chiefly valued for the range of her translations and for the way her work carried songs, stories, and poems across languages without losing their charm.