Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Sarah Taylor Austin
AUSTIN, Sarah Taylor, translator and miscellaneous writer, was born in 1793. She was one of the Taylor family of Norwich, several of whose members had distinguished themselves in the fields of literature and science. She was the youngest child of her family, received a liberal and solid education at home, chiefly from her mother, and had the advantage, too, of enjoying in her father's house much intellectual society. She grew up a beautiful and cultivated woman, and in 1820 became the wife of John Austin, noticed above. They settled in London, and among the familiar visitors of their house were Bentham, the Mills (father and son), the Grotes, Romilly, Buller, Sydney Smith, and other eminent men. She accompanied her husband in 1827 to Bonn, where they spent some months, and made acquaintance with Niebuhr, Schlegel, Arndt, and other distinguished Germans. She afterwards lived some years in Germany and France, and was left a widow in December 1859. Mrs Austin is best known as a singularly skilful translator of German and French works. In 1832 appeared her version of the Travels of Prince Puckler Muskau. This was followed by Characteristics of Goethe from the German of Falk, History of the Reformation in Germany and History of the Popes from the German of Ranke, and Dr Carove's Story without an End. She contributed "Travelling Letters" and critical and obituary notices to the Athenæum, edited the Memoir of Sydney Smith and her daughter Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from Egypt, and for some years of her widowhood was occupied in arranging for publication her husband's Lectures on Jurisprudence. She was also author of Germany from 176O to 1814, National Education, and Letters on Girls' Schools. Mrs Austin died at Weybridge in Surrey, 8th August 1867.