Benson, R. H. (Translator)

Robert Hugh Benson was a British priest and author, the youngest son of the archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson. Nicknamed “Brer Rabbit” by his sister, He had a classical education at Eton, followed by Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. In 1895 he was ordained as an Anglican priest by his father who died the following year. He then went to the Middle East where he did some soul-searching, and on his return, in 1901, joined an Anglican religious group of men, the Community of the Resurrection, in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. He seems to have undergone an epiphany and amazed family and friends by converting to Catholicism in 1903. He was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1904. His first ministry was as a college chaplain, and despite a stutter, he was a popular speaker. He also began a parallel career in writing: he wrote some religious essays and books, but his production of fiction, like that of his brothers, Edward Frederick Benson and Arthur Christopher Benson, was prolific. He penned ghost stories, horror stories, historical novels, children’s stories, plays and science fiction. His Lord of the World (1909) is one of the first dystopian novels. Not a translator by training, he nevertheless translated into English Brahm’s Alto Rhapsody on Herzreise in Winter (with words from Goethe) as well as several of Brahms’ songs. In 1911 he was appointed supernumerary private chamberlain to Pope Pius X with the title of “monsignor.” In 1914 he was invited to speak at Notre Dame University; the university’s Ave Maria magazine had earlier serialized two of his writings before their publication as books: Confessions of a Convert (1913) and Lourdes (1914). He died of pneumonia that same year.