Ernest Walter Dickes (19 March 1876 – 26 July 1957), most commonly known as E. W. Dickes, was an English journalist for the Manchester Guardian, and translator of more than 70 books.[1]

Biography edit

Dickes was the eldest son of Walter James Dickes and Sarah Anne Dickes.[2] Born in Camberwell, London, he was educated at the City of London School. He became a civil servant in the Admiralty for 20 years, and spent five years as a dockyard secretary in Malta.[1] In 1915, as deputy cashier at Portsmouth Dockyard, he was charged with being in possession of false documents.[3] The following year, as a conscientious objector, he came to the attention of the House of Commons.[4] He spent two years in prison, during which time he learnt Esperanto.[1]

After the war he joined the Manchester Guardian as a journalist, amongst other things serving as an in-house translator from French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish, Latin, Greek, Danish, and Russian.[1]

Dickes married twice: his first wife divorced him in 1936,[5] and he married Doris Whittle shortly after.[2] He died in Stockport, Cheshire, aged 81.[6]

Translations edit

  • Hermann Lutz, Lord Grey and the Great War, New York: A.A. Knopf, 1928.
  • Valeriu Marcu, Lenin. New York: Macmillan Co., 1928. Translated from the German Lenin: 30 Jahre Russland.
  • Karl Friedrich Nowak, Kaiser and Chancellor; the opening years of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1930
  • Karl Friedrich Nowak, Germany's road to ruin; the middle of the reign of Emperor William II, 1932
  • Hans Kohn, Western civilization in the Near East, 1935
  • Alexander Mosolov, At the court of the last tsar, London, 1935.
  • Andreas Latzko, Lafayette, a life, New York: Literary guild, 1936. Translated from the German.
  • Theodor Wolff, The Eve of 1914, New York: A.A. Knopf, 1936. Translated from the German Der krieg des Pontius Pilatus.
  • Antonina Vallentin, Leonardo da Vinci: the tragic pursuit of perfection. New York: Viking, 1938. Translated from the German manuscript.
  • Hermann Rauschning, The revolution of nihilism: warning to the West. New York: Alliance Book Corp., Longmans, Green & Co, 1939. Translated from the German.
  • Sergeĭ Chakhotin, The rape of the masses; the psychology of totalitarian political propaganda, New York, Alliance Book Corp., [1940].
  • Moritz Goldstein: Führers must fall. A study of the phenomenon of power from Caesar to Hitler. Übersetzung ins Englische E. W. Dickes, W. H.Allan & Co, London 1942.
  • Levin Ludwig Schücking, The sociology of literary taste, 1944
  • Wilhelm Röpke, The solution of the German problem, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, [1947]. Revised and enlarged ed. of The German question (published London, 1946). Published in Switzerland in 1945 as Die deutsche Frage.
  • Antonina Vallentin, Mirabeau, New York Viking Press, 1948. Translated from the French works Mirabeau avant la Révolution and Mirabeau dans la Révolution
  • Maxime Weygand, Recalled to Service. Heinemann, London, 1952.
  • Klaus Günther, Creatures of the deep sea, 1956
  • Georg Misch, The History of Autobiography in Antiquity
  • Gaetano Salvemini, The Fascist Dictatorship
  • Grigory Semyonov, Conquest of Siberia

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d 'OBITUARY: Mr E. W. Dickes', The Manchester Guardian, p. 2
  2. ^ a b 'Marriages', The Times, 24 July 1936, p. 1
  3. ^ 'Dockyard Official in Custody: Seizure of Documents', The Times, 30 September 1915; 'Charge against Dockyard Official: An Explanation Promised', The Times, 5 October 1915
  4. ^ 'Conscientious Objector at the Admiralty', The Times, 2 November 1916, p. 10; 'The Case of Mr E. W. Dickes', The Times, 23 November 1916, p. 12
  5. ^ 'Probate , Divorce, and Admiralty Division: 126 decrees made absolute', The Times, 20 June 1936
  6. ^ England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007