Susannah Dobson
Susannah Dobson née Dawson (died 1795) was an English translator, from the south of England.
Life
The daughter of John Dawson of the parish of St Dunstan, London,[1] she married a physician, Dr Matthew Dobson of Liverpool, who died at Bath, Somerset in 1784. They had three children.
Frances Burney mentions that in 1780 Susannah Dobson was ambitious to get into Mrs Thrale's circle, but the latter was not keen.[2] A modern view of what Thrale wrote in Thraliana is that it implied Dobson was a lesbian.[3] Burney wrote of her, "Though coarse, low-bred, forward, self-sufficient, and flaunting, she seems to have a strong masculine understanding." Dr Dobson eventually became Mrs Thrale's physician.[4]
Susannah Dobson died 30 September 1795, and was buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden.[2]
Works
In 1775 Dobson published her Life of Petrarch, collected from Mémoires pour la vie de Petrarch (by Jacques-François de Sade), in 2 vols. It was reprinted in 1777, and several times up to 1805, when the sixth edition was issued. She claimed in 1780 that it had earned her £400.[5] Her second work was a translation of Sainte-Palaye's Literary History of the Troubadours, 1779; 2nd e. 1807. In 1784 she translated the same author's Memoirs of Ancient Chivalry, and in 1791 Petrarch's View of Human Life (De remediis utriusque fortunae).
To her also is ascribed an anonymous Dialogue on Friendship and Society (no date), and Historical Anecdotes of Heraldry and Chivalry published at Worcester about 1795.[2]
Notes
- ^ Antonella Braida, "Dobson , Susannah (d. 1795)", ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004 Retrieved 7 October 2014, subscription required.
- ^ a b c Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1888). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 15. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ Temma F. Berg (1 January 2006). The Lives and Letters of an Eighteenth-century Circle of Acquaintance. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 83. ISBN 978-0-7546-5599-2. Retrieved 19 June 2013.
- ^ ODNB....
- ^ ODNB....
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1888). "Dobson, Susannah". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 15. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  | This biography about a translator from the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |