The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Robinson, Theresa Albertine Louise von Jakob

ROBINSON, Theresa Albertine Louise von Jakob, German-American author: b. Halle, Prussia, 26 Jan. 1797; d. Hamburg, 13 April 1870. She was the second wife of Edward Robinson (q.v.), and was known in Germany as an author under the name of &ldquo;Talvj&rdquo; (formed from her initials). While residing at Kharkoff she began to study Slavonian, and wrote her first poems. In 1824 she published a few tales in a volume bearing the title &lsquo;Psyche.&rsquo; She also published, in 1825-26, translations of a number of Serbian popular songs entitled &lsquo;Volkslieder des Serben.&rsquo; In America she began the study of aboriginal languages and translated into German Pickering's work on the Indian tongues. In 1834 she wrote a &lsquo;Historical Review of the Slavic Languages&rsquo; for the &lsquo;Biblical Repository,&rsquo; republished in enlarged form in 1850. During her husband's visit to Palestine she resided in Germany, where she published, in 1840, &lsquo;Charakteristik der Volkslieder germanischer Nationen mit einer Uebersicht der Lieder aussereuropäischer Völkerschaften.&rsquo; &lsquo;Die Colonisation von Neu-England&rsquo; was published at Leipzig in 1847; a defective translation by W. Hazlitt, Jr., appeared in London in 1851. She also wrote numerous tales, and contributed to magazines, both German and English. &lsquo;Heloise,&rsquo; &lsquo;Life's Discipline&rsquo; and &lsquo;The Exiles&rsquo; were German tales translated into English by her daughter (1850-53). &lsquo;Fifteen Years: A Picture of the Last Century&rsquo; appeared in 1870, and &lsquo;Gesammelte Novellen&rsquo; in 1874.