Henry Francis Cary

Born in 1772, Henry Francis Cary was an English clergyman, poet, and translator whose reputation rests mainly on his English version of Dante. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford, took holy orders, and spent much of his working life balancing church duties with literary work.

Cary devoted years to translating The Divine Comedy, first publishing part of it early in the 1800s and later issuing the full translation. That work won notable readers, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Leigh Hunt, and became one of the best-known English gateways to Dante for 19th-century audiences.

Later in life he was appointed assistant keeper of printed books at the British Museum. He died in 1844, remembered as a learned and steady literary figure whose Dante translation gave many English-speaking readers their first real encounter with one of Italy's greatest poets.