Eden Paul

Early life

Paul was the younger son of the publisher Charles Kegan Paul, and Margaret Colvile. His mother was one of 12 daughters born to Andrew Wedderburn-Colvile (1779–1856) and the Hon. Mary Louisa Eden, fifth daughter of William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland.

He was educated at University College School and University College London; he continued his medical studies at London Hospital. In the mid-1880s he helped Beatrice Webb and Ella Pycroft run Katharine Buildings, model dwellings that were the first project of the philanthropically-motivated East End Dwellings Company, and in 1886 joined Charles Booth's Board of Statistical Inquiry investigating poverty in London.

In 1890, he married Margaret Jessie Macdonald, née Boag, a ward sister at the London Hospital. From 1892–4, he taught at a university in Japan, where his daughter Hester was born in 1893.

Journalism

He travelled with the Japanese army as a Times correspondent during the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895. Between 1895 and 1912, he practised medicine in Japan, China, Perak, Singapore, Alderney and England. He was the founder and editor of the Nagasaki Press, 1897–99.

By 1903, the family had moved to Alderney, where his wife later established a private nursing home; however, the couple separated about this time. From 1907 to 1919, he was a member of the ILP where he promoted eugenics, and worked for the French Socialist Party from 1912 to 1914. He later joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He remained active in the CPGB at least until 1928.

Later years

In 1932 he retired to live on the French Riviera. In 1939, aged 74, he was badly injured in a motor accident near Grasse. With his second wife, Cedar Paul, he wrote several books for a socialist reading public, and they also worked together to translate from German, French, Italian and Russian.

Works

Translations undertaken with Cedar Paul

The ABC of Communism by Nikolai Bukharin and Yevgeni Preobrazhensky London: The Communist Party of Great Britain

Napoléon by Emil Ludwig. New York, N.Y. : Boni & Liveright, 1926

Bismarck; the story of a fighter by Emil Ludwig. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1927

The Son of man: the story of Jesus by Emil Ludwig. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1928

Capital, by Karl Marx. Translated from the 4th German edition of Das Kapital. London: Allen & Unwin, 1928

Karl Marx: his Life and Work by Otto Ruhle. New York: Viking/London: Allen & Unwin, 1929

Lincoln by Emil Ludwig. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1930

Joseph Fouché, the portrait of a politician by Stefan Zweig. New York: Viking Press, 1930

Marie Antoinette, the portrait of an average woman by Stefan Zweig. New York: Viking Press, 1933

Bula Matari: Stanley, conqueror of a continent by Jakob Wassermann. New York, Liveright Inc., 1933

Erasmus of Rotterdam by Stefan Zweig. New York: Viking Press, 1934

Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Stefan Zweig. New York: Viking Press, 1935

Arturo Toscanini by Paul Stefan. New York: Viking Press, 1936