Born: 14 January 1830, United Kingdom
Died: 4 August 1908
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Katherine
The following is excerpted from Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company.
Katharine Prescott Wormeley, an American translator and author, born in England, the daughter of a British admiral. She came to the United States in girlhood, and first gained distinction by her service in the relief of Union soldiers during the Civil War, concerning which she wrote The U.S. Sanitary Commission, and Letters from Headquarters During the Peninsular Campaign.
Miss Wormeley is best known, however, for her admirable translations of great French writers. These include the novels of Balzac, the plays of Moliere, and the Memoirs of the Duc de St. Simon.
She also wrote a Life of Balzac.
The following is excerpted from A Woman of the Century, edited by Frances E. Willard and Mary A Livermore, published in 1893 by Charles Wells Moulton.
WORMELEY, Miss Katherine Prescott, translator, born in Ipswich, England, 14th January, 1830. She is the second daughter of Admiral Wormeley, active during the war in connection with the Sanitary Commission. She served under McOlmsted on the James river and the Pamunky, and was afterwards made lady superintendent of the hospital for convalescent soldiers in Portsmouth Grove, R. I. She published many of her letters in a book called “Hospital Transports,” and in another volume on the work of the Sanitary Commission. These works have been recently republished under another name. Miss Wormeley resides principally in Newport, R. I., where she engages actively in all matters touching sanitary improvement, charity organization, the employment of women, instruction for girls in household duties and in cooking-schools. She is the translator of Balzac for a Boston publishing firm, and her work is praised as an almost unrivaled translation. She has also translated works by George Sand.