Elise Charlotte Otté

Elise Charlotte Otté (30 September 1818 – 20 December 1903) was an Anglo-Danish linguist, scholar and historian. She completed a number of translations into English from different languages. She assisted her step-father in translating the Norse poems known as the Elder Edda.

Early life Otté was born in Copenhagen on 30 September 1818, to a Danish father and an English mother called Mary Anne. In 1820, she moved with her parents to the island of Saint Croix (then Sankt Croix of the Danish West Indies). When her father died, she and her mother returned to Denmark. and together, the family moved to England. Thorpe taught his step-daughter several modern languages as well as Icelandic and Old English to the point that she was able to assist his grammatical work, but they clashed on a personal level and she found him oppressive. When Day retired in 1863, she moved with Day and his wife to Torquay until his death in 1872. She continued her career from London, writing in scientific periodicals, but also publishing a monograph, Scandinavian history, in 1874.

She died at Richmond on 20 December 1903, aged 85.

Notable works

Scandinavian history. London, Macmillan & Co., 1874. Denmark and Iceland. London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1881. A simplified grammar of the Danish language. London: Trübner & Co., 1883. A simplified grammar of the Swedish language. London: Trübner & Co., 1884. Norway, Sweden and Denmark. edited by Edward Samuel Corwin. Polar research by G.T. Surface. Chicago : H.W. Snow, [c1910]

Translations Views of nature, or, Contemplations on the sublime phenomena of creation by Alexander von Humboldt. With Henry G. Bohn. London: H.G. Bohn, 1850. Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe by Alexander von Humboldt. London: H. G. Bohn, 1851 The rambles of a naturalist on the coasts of France, Spain, and Sicily by Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857. Pictures of Old England by Reinhold Pauli. Cambridge, London, Macmillan and Co., 1861.