Dorothy Bussy
Dorothy Bussy (née Strachey; 24 July 1865 – 1 May 1960) was an English novelist and translator.[1] Born into the intellectually prominent Strachey family as one of ten children of Sir Richard Strachey, an administrator in the Indian Civil Service and geologist, and Lady Jane Maria Strachey, a suffragist, Bussy was the elder sister of biographer Lytton Strachey and psychoanalyst James Strachey, among others.[2][1] She received much of her education in France, attending a boarding school run by Marie Souvestre that later inspired her writing.[3] In 1903, she married French painter Simon Bussy, with whom she had a daughter, Jane Simone Bussy, also a painter.[1] Bussy's most significant contributions were her English translations of André Gide's works, including Strait is the Gate (1924), If It Die (1935), The Fruits of the Earth (1949), and Return from the USSR (1937), which introduced Gide's ideas to English readers.[4][5][6][7] Her friendship with Gide, beginning around 1918, led to an extensive bilingual correspondence spanning decades, later published as Selected Letters of André Gide and Dorothy Bussy.[8] Bussy also authored Olivia (1949), published anonymously under the pseudonym Olivia by the Hogarth Press; the semi-autobiographical novella recounts a teenage English girl's experiences at a French finishing school, marked by intense emotional attachments to the headmistresses and themes of adolescent passion.[9] Through her family ties, she maintained connections to the Bloomsbury Group, though her own work centered on translation and personal narrative.[2]
Early Life
Family Background
Dorothy Bussy was born Dorothy Strachey on 24 July 1865, the third daughter and fifth child among thirteen offspring of Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Strachey (1817–1908) and Jane Maria Strachey (née Grant, 1840–1928).[10] Sir Richard, an engineer and administrator in the British Indian Army, rose to prominence through his work on irrigation projects and meteorological surveys in India, reflecting the family's deep ties to colonial service.[11] Jane Maria, daughter of colonial governor Sir John Peter Grant, brought connections to high-level imperial administration, having married Richard in 1859 shortly after his service under her father.[12] Of the thirteen children, ten survived to adulthood, forming a cohort that included several intellectually active figures, such as biographer and critic Giles Lytton Strachey (1880–1932), cryptographer and civil servant Oliver Strachey (1874–1960), and translator James Strachey (1887–1967).[10][2] The Stracheys maintained a household marked by frequent relocations between England and India due to Richard's postings, fostering an environment steeped in administrative discipline and exposure to multicultural influences from the subcontinent.[2] This setting emphasized practical education and public duty, aligned with the family's multigenerational involvement in British governance and engineering endeavors.[11]