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Verne and Project Gutenberg

From: Arthur B. Evans <aevans2~at~mail.tds.net>
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 18:03:27 -0500
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~math.technion.ac.il>

Norman,

Although I have not yet had the time to examine all of them in detail, the
English translations of Verne's works that you and Judy Boss are scanning
for PG are definitely a mixed bag.

As pointed out, most of those contained in the 1911 Vincent Parke edition
have been abridged (or worse).

The Ace paperbacks that you mention are reprints of the (very abridged)
"Fitzroy Edition" translated by I.O. Evans. Please don't use them!

Of those works contained in Lippincott's 1931 _The Jules Verne Omnibus_:
1. _Twenty Thousand Leagues_ is the very poor translation by Lewis Mercier
("The year 1866 was signalised..."), as critiqued by Walter Miller in his
_Annotated Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues_. One of the worst.
Although I have not yet made a detailed comparison of them, the 1876
Ward/Lock version (reprinted by Octopus in 1978) and the 1922 translation by
Philip Schuyler Allen (reprinted by Reader's Guide in 1990) are probably
much better.
2. _Around the World in 80 Days_ is the fair-to-good translation by George
M. Towle.
3. _The Blockade Runners_ seems to be a fair translation (anonymous) that
appeared in the original Sampson Low edition of 1874--with name of the ship
changed from "Delphin" to "Dolphin," and many other alterations. Although I
do not have a copy to compare it against, I suspect that the 1976 Routledge
version (translated by Henry Frith) may be better.
4. _From the Earth to the Moon_ and _Round the Moon_ are the very poor
translations by Louis/Lewis Mercier and Eleanor King, as critiqued by Walter
Miller in his _Annotated Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon_. The only
other modern reprint of an early translation that I'm aware of is the horrid
Roth version (Dover, 1962)--but it's even worse. The T.H. Linklater
translation done for Routledge in 1877 may be a good one, but I have not yet
seen it (Roger Torstenson is sending me a copy to examine).

There currently exists *no* decent translation of _The Floating Island_ (aka
_Propeller Island_). The W.J. Gordon translation (Sampson Low 1896,
reprinted recently by Kegan Paul in its "Pacific Books") is a real
horror--not only abridged but also ideologically sanitized, with all
passages negative to the Brits either removed or altered. And there were a
lot of them! And the I.O. Evans translation done for the "Fitzroy Edition"
is even worse.

I have not yet compared the different versions of _800 Leagues on the
Amazon_. But the W.J. Gordon translation that you are using immediately
arouses my suspicions (see above).

Lackland's translation of _Five Weeks_, although archaically quaint (and
often euphemistic) in its style, is the most faithful to Verne's original
novel. It is complete and unabridged--although he does drop out a few
footnotes included in the original.

For _The Purchase of the North Pole_ (aka _Topsy Turvy_), the Ace paperback
(trans. I.O. Evans) is the worst edition. Better is the one reprinted in the
Vincent Parke collection--but it also has been abridged somewhat. It would
be even better to use the 1890 Sampson Low (from which the Parke ed. version
is taken) if you can get a copy of it. I haven't yet seen the 1890 Ogilvie
version titled _Topsy Turvy_ to be able to compare these.

As for _Dick Sand, or A Captain at Fifteen_, the only version I have is the
one titled _Dick Sands, The Boy Captain_ (Sampson Low, 1878, trans. by Ellen
E. Frewer) and reprinted by Aeonian Press in 1976. The one you have seems
to be the version originally published by Munro that same year. If you
would be kind enough to send me some photocopies of the first pages of a few
chapters, I could do a "quick and dirty" comparison for you and make a
recommendation as to which seems better.

I hope this helps. Thanks so much for sharing our concern about which
translations of Verne are immortalized in cyberspace!

Art Evans
5590 W CR 525S
Greencastle, IN 46135
(765) 653-4486
Received on Tue 15 Feb 2000 - 03:10:02 IST

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