Translations

Among other things, Whittaker Chambers was a highly gifted linguist. He spoke more than a dozen languages, starting with native English, French from his mother, and German from a tutor. His personal library includes most Indo-European languages:

My mother had urged me to study Gaelic, the language of our forebears… I began to study Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, and the Assyrian of the cuneiform inscriptions… I presently picked up a rough smattering of the dialect [Rumanian Gypsy]… (Witness, p. 145)

At the time of his death in 1961, he had resumed his study of languages: Chinese, Latin, and Italian formally at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College), as well as Classical Greek on his own.

This same gift for languages allowed Chambers to pass himsellf off as a European in front of many people — including spy apparatuses in Washington.

It also allowed him to earn extra income in moments of extreme poverty, namely 1928-1932 when he was at the fringes of the Communist Party and 1938-1939 when he defected from the Soviet espionage underground.

Most if not all of the translation work came through his Columbia College classmate, Clifton Fadiman.

TRANSLATIONS 1928-1940

• 1928: Bambi by Felix Salten (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928) – from German ¹
• 1928: Mother Mary by Heinrich Mann (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1928) – from German
• 1928: Aphrodite by Pierre Louÿs (New York: ???, 1928) – from French
• 1929: Class Reunion by Franz Werfel (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1929) – from German
• 1930: The Sentimental Vagabond by Albert t’Serstevens (New York: New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1930) – from French (Le Vagabond sentimental)
• 1930: The Passionate Rebel: The Life of Lord Byron by Kasimir Edschmid (New York: A. & C. Boni, 1930) – from German
• 1930: Fifteen Rabbits by Felix Salten (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1930) – from German
• 1930: Thistles of the Barragon by Panait Istrati – from French (Les Chardons du Baragan – Rumanian title Ciulinii Bărăganului )
• 1930: Adventures of Mario by Waldemar Bonsels (New York: A. & C. Boni, 1930) – from German
• 1930: Mugel the Giant by Paul Gartner (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1930) – from German (Der Riese Mugel)
• 1931: Cards and Kings by Johannes Tralow (New York: Ray Long and R. R. Smith, 1931) – from German (König Neuhoff)
• 1931: The Venetian Lover: The Romance of Giorgione by A. De Nora [Anton Alfred Noder] (New York: Ray Long and R. R. Smith, 1931) – from German (Giorgione: Roman)
• 1931: Samson and Delilah: A Novel by Felix Salten (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1931) – from German
• 1932: Collected Works by Pierre Louÿs (New York: Liveright, circa 1932 ) – from French
• 1932: The Scorpion by Anna Elisabet Weirauch (New York: Greenberg, 1932) – from German (Der Skorpion)
• 1932: The City Jungle by Felix Salten (New York: A. & C. Boni, 1932) – from German
• 1938: Dunant: The Story of the Red Cross by Martin Gumpert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938) – from German (Dunant: Der Roman des Roten Kreuzes)
• 1940: The Great Crusade by Gustav Regler, with a preface by Ernest Hemingay (New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green & Co., 1940) – from German