translated Goethe's Italian Journey (1962). Douglas Pringle wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that this was a "very lively translation." She also translated Hans Graf von Lehndorff's Token of a Covenant: Diary of an East Prussian Surgeon, 1945-47 (1965). With Peter Pears, Mayer also prepared translations for Benjamin Britten, for inclusion in programs or scores of songs in Italian, German and Russian which he had set to music. She was the dedicatee and recipient of Auden's poem New Year Letter and the book that included it, The Double Man (1941). In New Year Letter, Auden described her "learned peacefulness"; he regarded her the emotional equivalent of a mother, and was close to her for many years. Near the end of her life he wrote about her (without naming her) in his poem Old People's Home, and in Lines for Elizabeth Mayer, in About the House. Elizabeth Mayer is the dedicatee of "Hymn To St. Cecilia," Op. 27, as well as the sixth section, titled "Interlude," of Britten's "Les Illuminations," Op. 18, settings of Rimbaud for high voice and string orchestra. She was a friend and admirer of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. References External links Elizabeth Mayer and Wolfgang Sauerländer Papers. Yale Collection of German Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. American translators German–English translators German emigrants to the United States 1884 births 1970 deaths American women writers 20th-century translators American salon-holders Translators of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe