Translating M et Mme/Mr and Mrs: the case of male scientific translators in the forging of nineteenth-century natural science by women

If the feminist turn in the late 1980s alerted scholars to the ‘uneasy careers’ (Abir-Am & Outram, 1989) of women in the long nineteenth century busily translating and illustrating their way into science undertaken mainly by their fathers, husbands, and brothers, this chapter develops subsequent scholarship that uncovers women clearly making primary scientific contributions. In scientific translation it further identifies the many secondary men forging careers in science as its intra- and interlingual translator-disseminators (vulgarisateurs and popularisers) of science authored by ‘Mme’ and ‘Mrs’, and by ‘M’ and ‘Mr’. Three indicative cases provide proof of concept. W. H. Davenport Adams (1828–91) translated the work of Madame (Athénaïs) Michelet into English as well as the works of M. (Jules) Michelet. Théodore Lacordaire (1801–70) translated Sarah Bowdich Lee's biography of Georges Cuvier into French in 1833. Gerson Hesse (n.d.) translated the work of Mrs Mary Trimmer into French in 1828. In consequence, (nineteenth-century) scientific translations are no secondary scientific endeavours when they differently promote (or further efface) works by overlooked primary women. Translations of their science by men also identifies key innovations in the sciences of other (rival) language cultures. Scientific progress is therefore not a revolution, but rather a ‘translation’ of knowledge.