author
1844–1928
A Victorian translator and author with a strong love of Italy, he helped bring classic Italian tales to English readers and also wrote fiction of his own. His work ranges from lively story collections to studies of Renaissance art and biography.
by W. G. (William George) Waters
William George Waters was a British translator and author active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Reliable catalog and reference sources identify him as a translator, novelist, and writer with ties to Oxford, and his surviving bibliography shows a career that moved easily between fiction, translation, and literary scholarship.
He is especially remembered for translating Italian works into English. Sources connected with his bibliography and author records credit him with English versions of The Nights of Straparola and other Italian story collections, and later listings of his books also show his interest in Italian culture more broadly, including works on Renaissance figures and art such as Piero della Francesca, Italian Sculptors, and Jerome Cardan.
Alongside that scholarly side, Waters also published novels including The Cardics, A Lily Maid, My Friend Bellamy, A Vagabond Will, and Dr. Campion's Patients. He is usually dated 1844–1928 in library and author references, and his body of work suggests a writer who enjoyed introducing English readers to both imaginative fiction and the richness of Italian literary history.