Robinson, Therese, 1797-1870

Therese Albertine Luise von Jakob Robinson was an author, linguist and translator. She published under the pseudonym Talvj, an acronym derived from the initials of her birth name. She was born 1797 in Halle and accompanied her father's appointment to the University of Charkow, Russia, where she studied Slavic languages. In 1816, the family moved back to Halle.

She translated Walter Scott's Old Mortality and The Black Dwarf, which she published under the pseudonym Ernst Berthold. Talvj was the pen name she invented, an acrostic formed from the initials of her maiden name.

In August 1828, she married the American theologian Edward Robinson and moved to the United States in 1830. She began the study of the languages of Native American Indians, which later culminated in a translated handbook. After the death of her husband in 1863, she moved to Hamburg, where her son, Edward, was American consul. Her last work was published in the United States under the title of Fifteen Years, a Picture from the Last Century