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Re: new 20K

From: <spaceart~at~att.net>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:39:08 +0000
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Well put, Walter!

The "Unicorn" 20K should be available before the weekend (I'm completing the proofing now---mainly trying to find all of the anomalous hyphens the OCR program carried over from the scanning of the book---and they are hard to spot!). I've also tried to fix all of the aggravating typos that resulted from the laziness of the editors at Unicorn. In addition to about two dozen of my illustrations, I've also included a map of the complete voyage of the Nautilus as well as detail maps of the Torres Straits, Vanikoro and other places. There is also a two-page spread of a cutaway view of the Nautilus, a page illustrating the Nautilus in scale with about twenty real 19th century submarines and a brief discussion about the origins of the Nautilus. Other end matter includes a diagram of the Rouyquarol diving apparatus and a page devoted to the giant squid and Verne's sources for it.

I couldn't agree with you more about the ML edition---except that I rather feel as though the fact, as you say, that he has come to "typify the whole Verne-translation scandal" has resulted in absolutely everything he did being painted with the same brush. I feel (obviously!) that a throroughly corrected and completed ML version of 2OK does indeed have merit. If nothing else, it makes for a unique edition of the book!

By the way, one of the most interesting things about making this book (and Journey) available in the way that I am is that it can be an interactive process...I can make corrections and additions literally between printings of individual copies. In this way, I can incorporate any suggestions that might be made by readers.

RM

--
Black Cat Studios
http://www.black-cat-studios.com
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Walter J Miller <wjm2~at~nyu.edu>
Ron and all: A little background on this Mercier Lewis-Annotated 20K discussion.  When I felt that my 1965 essay "Jules Verne in America: A Translator's Preface" had failed to rouse publishers/readers to strive to rehabilitate Verne in the anglophone world, my editor at Crowell---the great Hugh Rawson---suggested that we do an annotated edition of the "standard" [Lewis] edition and (1) annotate all his errors and (2) fill in the gaps with my translation of the 23% Lewis had omitted---and annotate the reasons maybe for the omissions!  I think that this Crowell edition ('76) did more than the Washington Square Press edition ('65) to get things moving.  And you are right, Ron, to wonder why we did not take the other route: Many readers asked why did you not just correct and fulfill the ML version.  Rawson thought the other route would be more dramatic, and I think that on the one hand he was right for THE TIME, but that actually the! other route should also be tried.  Of course,
  one would have to feel, as Ron does, that ML has intrinsic values, which I don't, obviously.  I think his only value to us THEN was that he typified the whole Verne-translation scandal and  had to be exposed as such in great detail. So now, with your Unicorn edition, we have both routes traveled, but clearly better treatments were called for, and I think that the Miller-Walter USNIP and the Butcher Oxford versions were inevitable----one on the big hardcover level, the other on the mass paperback level.  I will still order the Unicorn (amazon.com?) just to see how the "other route" that Rawson and I considered has worked out.  And incidentally, it was not the word "bullshit" that I regarded as a critique but the words "non sequiturs." "Bullshit" alone would be "intellectual bullying," but "non sequiturs" are a serious intellectual concern.Cheers!  Walter James Miller

Received on Wed 12 Oct 2005 - 19:39:55 IST

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