R. F. C. Hull (full name: Richard Francis Carrington Hull; 5 March 1913 – 16 December 1974), was a British

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

, best known for his role in translating ''

The Collected Works of C.G. Jung ''The Collected Works of C. G. Jung'' (german: Gesammelte Werke) is a book series containing the first collected edition, in English translation, of the major writings of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. The twenty volumes, including a Bibliog ...

''. He also translated many other scholarly works. He was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, to Irma Carrington and Francis Reginald Hull. His uncle, Irma's brother, was the psychic researcher

Hereward Carrington Hereward Carrington (17 October 1880 – 26 December 1958) was a well-known British-born American investigator of psychic phenomena and author. His subjects included several of the most high-profile cases of apparent psychic ability of his times, ...

. Hull began his education in

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

, but withdrew from that in favor of

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (p ...

and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

. During the 1930s, he began translating the works of

Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogn ...

, and during World War II, he was a

cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

in the U.K.'s secret

Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley P ...

project. After the war, he began to translate professionally for

Kegan Paul Charles Kegan Paul (8 March 1828 – 19 July 1902) was an English clergyman, publisher and author. He began his adult life as a clergyman of the Church of England, and served the Church for more than 20 years. His religious orientation moved f ...

and others, specializing in works on

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

. Hull was described as quick-minded, a stutterer and a "tall, elegant, distinguished-looking man sporting a malacca cane with a silver top." Most of the English-speaking world know of

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, ph ...

's work through translations by R.F.C. Hull. He translated or recycled about four million words of Jung's writings, and his obituary said that "''Virtually every word that Jung wrote or that was recorded as his statement passed through the circuit of Hull's mind.''" Hull also made numerous English-language verse translations of the comic poems of

Christian Morgenstern Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern (6 May 1871 – 31 March 1914) was a German author and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on 7 March 1910. He worked for a while as a journalist in Berlin ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hull, R. F. C. 1913 births 1974 deaths 20th-century British translators