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Re: Abridged editiions

From: rick walter <rick1walter~at~comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 17:01:19 -0800
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Hi Norm--

Other than giving the date 1928, Mickel doesn't specify which Hachette edition he's thinking of -- I've always assumed he must have meant the Verte text, which is a drastic juvenile condensation. Otherwise, I've worked with the 2-vol. Hachette from 1923 (not 1928 per Mickel) and can state that it isn't cut, though it was based on Heztel's softcover texts of 1869 and 1870, thus featuring a number of small variants from editions based on the in-8 text of 1871. As for the Livre de Poche text of 20K, I've worked with it extensively in conjunction with copies of the 1871 edition -- it is indeed "integral." Regarding your claim that Mickel calls Rencontre '69 the first "full" edition, it's not literally true; on p. 62 of his intro he writes: "Not until the 1960s . . . does the public get TWO [emphasis mine] restored editions of the author's original text"--viz, not only the Rencontre but the Flammarion. All the same, does he mean these were the ONLY complete editions popularly available in the 20th century? If so, the facts don't bear him out.

Again, the LdP is reliable, likewise the hypertext version on Zvi's site. (I haven't vetted Gutenberg's French text, tho I have no reason to doubt it.)

It would, of course, be marvelous if the French savants would prepare a variorum edition of 20K, as Bill Butcher and I have periodically bemoaned. But otherwise the situation isn't as alarming as you fear.

All the best,

Rick Walter
in Albuquerque.
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: N Wolcott
  To: Jules Verne Forum
  Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2005 12:48 PM
  Subject: Abridged editiions


  Reading the introduction to Emanuel Mickel's 20K, he mentions that Sampson Low were not the only ones to cut Verne novels, but that Hachette upon taking over the Hetzel corpus in 1928 also issued 20% cut versions of 20,000 Lealgues, but that readers, having the text in 2 separate volumes, might suppose they were getting the whole thing. He says it was not until the Recontre edition of 1969 that the full volume became available. My question is, does this mean that all the Hachette editiions, Biblioteque Verte etc are all chopped? And what about the Livre de Poche editions, many of which have a "texte integral" sticker on them, are they too suspect? And do they still issue the cut editiions? And what about the many french versions on the internet? This is another problem we don't need to have???

  N Wolcott nwolcott2~at~post.harvard.edu
Received on Mon 28 Feb 2005 - 01:55:33 IST

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