W. G. Waters (1844–1928)

William George Waters, first English translator of Straparola (1894),
and his wife Emily were an elite "creative couple" in late-Victorian and Edwardian London, a world that her Cook's Decameron (1901) mirrors in witty dialogues. Together they Englished Vespasiano's Lives (still in print). W. G. Waters, scion of old country gentry, published numerous books of his own: biographies of Girolamo Cardano and Piero della Francesca, A Traveller's Guide to Italy, Five Italian Shrines, The Early Italian Sculptors, Journal of Montaigne's Travels in Italy by way of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581. Best remembered for tales he translated--also Masuccio's Novellino and Ser Giovanni's Pecorone, he was a regular correspondent in the TLS and Librarian of the Saville Club, the "heart" of literary London. A portrait of Straparola's cultured translator in social context takes us back to the turn of the twentieth century and England's fascination with the Italian Renaissance.