Arthur Livingston (September 30, 1883 in

Northbridge, Massachusetts Northbridge is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 16,335 at the 2020 census. The Northbridge Town Hall is located at 7 Main Street in Whitinsville. The town is now a part of the Blackstone River Valley N ...

– 1944), was an American professor of Romance languages and literatures, translator, and publisher, who played a significant role in introducing a number of European writers to readers in the United States in the period between World War I and World War II.

Biography

Arthur Livingston earned his A.B. at Amherst College in 1904, and received a doctorate in Romance languages from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1910. Livingston taught Italian at Smith College (1908-1909) and at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

(1910-1911). He was associate professor of Romance Languages at

(1911-1917). During World War I, Arthur Livingston was an editor with the Foreign Press Bureau of the

Committee on Public Information The Committee on Public Information (1917–1919), also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States under the Wilson administration created to influence public opinion to support the ...

. After the war he co-founded with Paul Kennaday and

Ernest Poole Ernest Cook Poole (January 23, 1880 – January 10, 1950) was an American journalist, novelist, and playwright. Poole is best remembered for his sympathetic first-hand reportage of revolutionary Russia during and immediately after the Revolution ...

the Foreign Press Service, which represented foreign authors in English-language markets. He persuaded many American publishers that it was possible to create a market for the work of European authors in the United States. Livingston helped introduce to the United States the work of

Octave Aubry Octave Aubry (1 September 1881, Paris – 27 March 1946) was a French novelist and historian. Biography Aubry, Ernest Seillière, Jean Tharaud, René Grousset and Robert d'Harcourt were the five members of the Académie française elected on 1 ...

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (, 29 January 1867 – 28 January 1928) was a journalist, politician and bestselling Spanish novelist in various genres whose most widespread and lasting fame in the English-speaking world is from Hollywood films that were ...

Giuseppe Antonio Borgese Giuseppe Antonio Borgese (12 November 1882 – 4 December 1952) was an Italian writer, journalist, literary critic, Germanist, poet, playwright and academic naturalized American. Biography During the academic year 1899-1900, under pressure from ...

, Benedetto Croce,

Claude Farrère Claude Farrère, pseudonym of Frédéric-Charles Bargone (27 April 1876, in Lyon – 21 June 1957, in Paris), was a French Navy officer and writer. Many of his novels are based in exotic locations such as Istanbul, Saigon, or Nagasaki. One of ...

Guglielmo Ferrero Guglielmo Ferrero (; 21 July 1871 — 3 August 1942) was an Italian historian, journalist and novelist, author of the ''Greatness and Decline of Rome'' (5 volumes, published after English translation 1907–1909). Ferrero devoted his writings to c ...

, André Maurois,

Alberto Moravia Alberto Moravia ( , ; born Alberto Pincherle ; 28 November 1907 – 26 September 1990) was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his de ...

, Gaetano Mosca,

Giovanni Papini Giovanni Papini (9 January 18818 July 1956) was an Italian journalist, essayist, novelist, short story writer, poet, literary critic, and philosopher. A controversial literary figure of the early and mid-twentieth century, he was the earliest and ...

Vilfredo Pareto Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto ( , , , ; born Wilfried Fritz Pareto; 15 July 1848 – 19 August 1923) was an Italians, Italian polymath (civil engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher). He made several important ...

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

Giuseppe Prezzolini Giuseppe Prezzolini (27 January 1882 – 16 July 1982) was an Italian literary critic, journalist, editor and writer. He later became an American citizen. Biography Prezzolini was born in Perugia in January 1882, to Tuscan parents from Siena, Luig ...

, and

Guido da Verona Guido is a given name Latinised from the Old High German name Wido. It originated in Medieval Italy. Guido later became a male first name in Austria, Germany, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Latin America and Switzerland. The me ...

. In 1926 Livingston returned to academia, becoming Professor of Romance Languages at

in 1935.

Personal life and views

Livingston was strongly opposed to

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...

and was in correspondence with a number of anti-fascist intellectuals in Italy, like Lauro de Bosis. His political position created difficulties for him at Columbia University. Arthur Livingston had a notable liaison with the actress Eleonora Duse.

Published work

As a scholar, Livingston was the author of two book-length studies of

Gian Francesco Busenello Giovanni Francesco Busenello (24 September 1598 – 27 October 1659) was an Italian lawyer, librettist and poet of the 17th century. Biography Born to a low-class family of Venice, it is thought that he studied at the University of Oberhausen ...

. He was better known for his superb translations, which are sometimes said to be more readable than the originals.Malcolm M. Willey, review of Margaret Wilson Vine, ''An Introduction to Sociological Theory'', in ''American Sociological Review'' 35.3 (June 1970), 531-39;

Eric Voegelin Eric Voegelin (born Erich Hermann Wilhelm Vögelin, ; 1901–1985) was a German-American political philosopher. He was born in Cologne, and educated in political science at the University of Vienna, where he became an associate professor of poli ...

, Jodi Cockerill, and Barry Cooper, ''Selected Book Reviews'' (University of Missouri Press, 2001), 119. Livingston translated three works by

, nine works of

, and single works by Benedetto Croce (''The Conduct of Life'', 1924),

, and

, as well as ''The One-Act Plays of

'' (Dutton, 1928). His four-volume translation of

's 1916 ''magnum opus'' as ''

The Mind and Society ''The Mind and Society'' (, lit. "Treatise on General Sociology") is a 1916 book by the Italian sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923). In this book Pareto presents the first sociological cycle theory, centered on the concept of ...

'' (1935) contributed to a Pareto vogue in the 1930s in American intellectual circles that was promoted by writers like

Bernard DeVoto Bernard Augustine DeVoto (January 11, 1897 – November 13, 1955) was an American historian, conservationist, essayist, columnist, teacher, editor, and reviewer. He was the author of a series of Pulitzer-Prize-winning popular histories of the Ame ...

. A posthumous collection of Livingston's criticism was published in 1950 as ''Essays on Modern Italian Literature''.

References

Arthur Livingston: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Livingston, Arthur 1883 births 1944 deaths Columbia University faculty Cornell University faculty