Author: Malan, Caesar
Biography:
MALAN, Caesar (1787-1864: Wikipedia)
As a foreign author whose works enter this bibliography only in translation, Malan needs only a brief introduction. The translation here, by Ingram Cobbin (q.v.), was the first English rendering of hymns that were themselves new, innovative, and influential. Translations of some of Malan’s prose works—sermons and tales or fables for children—were already in circulation. Henri Abraham César Malan (or César-Henri-Abraham according to the Nouvelle biographie universelle published in his lifetime) was born on 7 July 1787 in Geneva and was educated for the ministry at the Geneva Academy. He was ordained in 1810 but his high Calvinist views led to controversial preaching, so he was twice suspended and finally defrocked in 1823. In 1820 he founded an independent church and it was at that time that he began to produce hymns. Julian calls Malan “the greatest name in the history of French hymns”: he composed over a thousand original hymns as well as the tunes that French Protestant congregations would sing them to. Malan died at Vandoeuvres, Switzerland, on 8 May 1864, and is buried there. He married and had a “numerous” family (Julian) but the name of his wife is not known. (Wikipedia 26 Feb. 2023; Julian 391, 711-12; NBG 32 [1852], 517)