author

Flora Ross Amos

b. 1881

A pioneering scholar of translation history, this early 20th-century writer is best known for tracing how English thinkers argued about the art of translation from the medieval world to the age of Pope. Her work still stands out as a clear, foundational study in the field.

1 Audiobook

Early Theories of Translation

Early Theories of Translation

by Flora Ross Amos

About the author

Flora Ross Amos was a literary scholar and teacher born in 1881. She is best known for Early Theories of Translation, a study published by Columbia University Press in 1920 and originally submitted as her Ph.D. thesis at Columbia University in 1919.

Her best-known book explores how ideas about translation developed in English writing, with attention to the medieval period, Bible translation, the sixteenth century, and later writers such as Dryden and Pope. The book has remained accessible through major library and public-domain collections, which speaks to its lasting value for readers interested in language, literature, and the history of criticism.

Amos also taught at what is now Case Western Reserve University. A university timeline lists her as holding an A.M. from Columbia in 1909, serving as an instructor from 1912 to 1916, and then as an assistant professor from 1916 to 1919.