William Ralston Shedden-Ralston

William Ralston Shedden-Ralston (1828-1889) was born in London and joined the printed books department of the British Museum in 1853, where he learned Russian so the institution's Russian holdings could be catalogued. He became one of the first serious English interpreters of Russian literature and folklore, translating ninety-three of Krylov's fables as Krilof and his Fables (1868) and Turgenev's A Nest of Gentlefolk as Liza (1869), a version Turgenev regarded as the best translation of any of his work. Ill health forced him out of the Museum in 1875, and he died in London in 1889.