First translator Hamlet into Slovenian, Dragotin Šauperl (1840 – 1869), learned English in the seminary because he wanted to become a missionary in America, but his wish did not come true. He died at the age of twenty-eight, after serving as a chaplain in various Styrian places for several years. During this time (1865) he translated a tragedy about a Danish prince and later gave it to the Dramatic Society in Ljubljana. Šauperl's translation was never staged and is considered lost; only excerpts published in a Maribor magazine have survived. Dawn, which was published in the 1870s.
Schauperl is next to Hamlet translated yet King Lear and most likely also other literary works that he sent to the editor Fran Levac, but the translations have not survived. They are only mentioned in Levac's correspondence. A good thirty years later, a copy of Šauperl's Hamlet from the archives of the Dramatic Society served as a template for Ivan Cankar, who retranslated the play for the first Slovenian production (1899). The play was also published the same year by the Gorizia publisher Andrej Gabršček in the collection Salon library.
