Maurice Eden Paul (27 September 1865, Sturminster Marshall – 1 December 1944) was a British socialist activist, physician, writer and translator.
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, Uueen of Scotland and the Isles by Stefan Zweig. New York: Viking Press, 1935 Arturo Toscanini by Paul Stefan. New York: Viking Press, 1936 Insulted and exiled : the truth about the German Jews by Stefan Zweig. London: John Mills, 1937 Racism by Magnus Hirschfeld, 1938 Imperial Byzantium by Bertha Diener. Boston: 1938 Translates Byzanz, von Kaisern, Engeln und Eunuchen, Leipzig, 1937. Triumph over pain by René Fülöp-Miller. New York, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1938 Conqueror of the seas; the story of Magellan by Stefan Zweig. New York: Viking Press, 1938