Biography.guide
Home › People › Writer › Margaret Wettlin
Portrait of Margaret Wettlin

Margaret Wettlin

1907 – 2003

Translator

Don't just read it — keep itBiographies to ownE-book · Audio · Video From $7 →

About Margaret Wettlin

Lived 1907 – 2003 (aged 95–96). Margaret Wettlin was an American writer, translator and journalist.

Margaret Butterworth Wettlin (, Margarita Danielevna Vettlin; 1907–2003) was an American-born Soviet memoirist and translator, best known for her translations of Russian literature. While living in Russia, she was forced into spying for its secret service.

Early life Wettlin was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1907, and raised in West Philadelphia.

Wettlin attended West Philadelphia High School, where she was class president. Following high school, she joined the School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in 1924 and graduated in 1928.

Wettlin's first job after university was as an English teacher at Lehighton High School. She then worked as a high-school teacher in Media, Pennsylvania till 1932.

After witnessing the collapse of the US economy in the Great Depression, and fascinated by the Soviet experiment of establishing a new economic policy, she travelled to Russia, planning to stay a year.

Soviet period Shortly after arriving in the USSR on a tourist visa, Wettlin took up a job teaching the children of American automobile workers in Gorky. To change to an employment visa, she had to leave the country temporarily. Before her departure for Helsinki, she met Andrei Efremoff, a stage director, who would become her husband in 1934. Despite her fears for herself and her family, Wettlin did not suffer any punishment from the authorities,

Anna Karenina and Short Stories by Leo Tolstoy Mother, Childhood. My Apprenticeship. My Universities, The Life of Matvei Kozhemyakin, The Three, Tales of Italy and Stories and Plays by Maxim Gorky No Ordinary Summer by Konstantin Fedin Plays by Alexander Ostrovsky The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak & Olga Freidenberg 1910-1954 Who Is to Blame? by Aleksandr Herzen The Dunno books of Nikolai Nosov Students by Yuri Trifonov

Editions Yakovlev, B. V. (editor). Lenin in Soviet poetry : a poetical chronicle. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st ed., 1980. 318 p. Series title: Lenin in Soviet Literature. Translated by Irina Zheleznova, Dorian Rottenberg, David Foreman, Peter Tempest, Gladys Evans, Alexei Sosinsky, Alex Miller, Robert Daglish, Margaret Wettlin, Tom Botting, and Jack Lindsay. Lazarev, L. (editor). Let the living remember : Soviet war poetry. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st ed., 1975. p. Series title: Progress Soviet authors library. Translated by Alex Miller, Olga Shartse, Tom Botting, Walter May, Margaret Wettlin, Peter Tempest, Avril Pyman, Dorian Rottenberg, Gladys Evans, Irina Zheleznova, Louis Zellikoff, and Alex Miller. Nine modern Soviet plays. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st ed., 1977. 728 p. Series title: Progress Soviet authors library. Translated by Geil Vroon, Robert Daglish, Alex Miller, and Margaret Wettlin. Reminiscences of Lev Tolstoi by his contemporaries. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1960. p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Bochkarev, Yuri (editor). Soviet Russian stories of the 1960s and 1970s. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st ed., 1977. p. Translated by Alex Miller, Margaret Wettlin, Eve Manning, Arthur Shkarovsky-Raffe, and Dania Miller. Such a simple thing and other Soviet stories. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. p. Translated by Robert Daglish, Margaret Wettlin, Helen Altschuler, S. Apresyan, Olga Shartse, and Bernard Isaacs. The October storm and after : stories and reminiscences. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st ed., 1967. 358 p. Translated by George H. Hanna, Helen Altschuler, Margaret Wettlin, and Robert Daglish. Imbovitz, Evgenia (editor). They found their voice : stories from Soviet nationalities with no written language before the 1917 October Revolution. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st ed., 1977. 255 p. Translated by Natalie Ward, Olga Shartse, Arthur Shkarovsky-Raffe, Jun Butler, Margaret Wettlin, David Sinclair-Loutit, Asaya Shoyett, Hilda Perham, Dolores Bratova, Eve Manning, David Marx, and Juli Katser. Aksyonov, Vasily. Colleagues. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Antonov, Sergei. Spring : short stories. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1954. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Fedin, Konstantin. No ordinary summer : a novel in two parts : part I and II. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1950. + p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Fedin, Konstantin. No ordinary summer : a novel in two parts : part I and part II. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st revised paperback ed., 1967. + p. Series title: Soviet novels series. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. Childhood. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 3rd ed., p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. Childhood. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1950. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. Mother : a novel. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1950. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. Mother : a novel in two parts. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 2nd ed., 1954. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. My apprenticeship. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 3rd ed., p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. My apprenticeship. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 5th ed., 1968. 420 p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. My apprenticeship : 1916. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1952. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. Selected works in two volumes : volume 1 : stories plays. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1948. 698 p. Translated by B. Isaacs, J. Fineberg, M. Wettlin, R. Prokofieva, and H. Kasanina. Gorky, M. The life of Matvei Kozhemyakin. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. p. Series title: Library of Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, M. The three. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, Maxim. Childhood. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 6th ed., 1973. 232 p. Series title: Progress Soviet authors library. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, Maxim. Mother. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 9th ed., 1967. p. Series title: Soviet Novels Series. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, Maxim. Mother. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1979. 384 p. Series title: Collected works in ten volumes : volume III. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, Maxim. Mother. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 14th ed., 1980. 384 p. Series title: Progress Soviet authors library. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Gorky, Maxim. My apprenticeship. My universities. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 485 p. Series title: Progress Soviet authors library. Translated by Margaret Wettlin and Hellen Altschuler. Gorky, Maxim. Selected stories. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1978. p. Series title: Collected works in ten volumes : volume I. Translated by Margaret Wettlin, Avril Pyman, Bernard Isaacs, and Robert Daglish. Gorky, Maxim. Tales of Italy. Childhood. Moscow : Progress Publishers. p. Series title: Collected works in ten volumes : volume VI. Translated by Rose Prokofieva and Margaret Wettlin. Herzen, Alexander. Who is to blame? : a novel in two parts. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1978. p. Series title: Progress Russian classics series. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Koptayeva, Antonina. Ivan Ivanovich : a novel in two parts. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1952. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Lavrenyov, Boris. The forty first. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. p. Series title: Library of Soviet literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin and Naomi Jochel. Marshak, S. Verses for children. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Ostrovsky, Alexander. Plays. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1st ed., 1974. p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Ostrovsky, Alexander. Plays. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 2nd ed., 1979. p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Sobko, Vadim. Guarantee of peace : a novel. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1951. p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Soloukhin, V. Honey on bread : short stories. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1982. 374 p. Series title: Russian and Soviet story. Translated by Kathleen Cook, Margaret Wettlin, and Dudley Hagen. Tolstoi, Lev. Short stories. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. p. Series title: Classics of Russian literature. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Tolstoy, Lev. Anna Karenina. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 1978. 584 + 495 p. Series title: Progress Russian classics series. Translated by Margaret Wettlin. Tolstoy, Lev. Short stories. Moscow : Progress Publishers. p. Translated by Margaret Wettlin and Helen Altschuler. Tolstoy, Lev. Short stories. Moscow : Progress Publishers. 2nd ed., 1975. 359 p. Series title: Progress Russian classics series. Translated by Helen Altschuler, Margaret Wettlin, and Kenneth Russell. Trifonov, Yuri. Students : a novel. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1953. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Ivy Litvinova and Margaret Wettlin. Uspenskaya, Y. Our summer : a novel. Moscow : Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1954. p. Series title: Library of selected Soviet literature. Translated by Ivy Litvinova and Margaret Wettlin.

Biography shop

Don’t just read it —
keep it.

Full-length biographies made to live with: read them, listen on the way to work, watch them tonight.

  • E-book
  • Audio
  • Video
Browse the shop — from $7

Instant download · yours to keep · every purchase keeps this site free

Important facts

Born
1907, Newark
Birth century
Nationality
Education
University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
Also known as
Margaret Butterworth Wettlin

People in Margaret Wettlin's life

Named in this biography and alive at the same time

Contemporaries

People whose lives overlapped Margaret Wettlin's

Frequently asked questions

Who was Margaret Wettlin?

translator

When was Margaret Wettlin born?

Margaret Wettlin was born in 1907 in Newark.

When did Margaret Wettlin die?

Margaret Wettlin died on 1 September 2003 in West Philadelphia.

What was Margaret Wettlin's occupation?

Margaret Wettlin was a writer, translator and journalist.

What nationality was Margaret Wettlin?

Margaret Wettlin was American.

Sources & further reading

· Wikipedia: Margaret Wettlin

· Wikidata: Q6760017

· DBpedia: Margaret Wettlin

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Margaret Wettlin. https://biography.guide/margaret-wettlin/

MLA: "Margaret Wettlin." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/margaret-wettlin/.

Chicago: "Margaret Wettlin." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/margaret-wettlin/.

Data last updated: 2026-09-20 · Spot an error? Report a correction.

Page generated 2026-09-27 05:07 UTC