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Hector Servadac

From: Norm Wolcott <nwolcott2ster~at~gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 16:08:45 -0400
To: jvf~at~gilead.org.il
Cc: 1001~at~atlanticbb.net

By now I am sure everyone has looked at the Munro version of Hector
Servadac on the Library of Congress web site. However, the magazine is
a little difficult to read online, and so I have posted a preliminary
version of chapters 1-5 on ibiblio at

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/sherwood/Servadac_001-005.htm

As is known the Sampson Low translation by Ellen Frewer , although it
follows the story line faithfully, is defective in that it paraphrases
much of the action and conversations, and much of the detail is lost.
In addition she seems almost to be trying to explain the story to the
English readers as if afraid they will not get the point at all if
translated literally. That may be true. We do not have to venture very
far into the novel to see how much of the original flavor has been
lost in the Frewer version. Miss Frewer has also softened down much of
Verne's descriptions of Isaac Hakhabut perhaps noting a little
overkill.

The Munro translation about which I shall have more to say later is
much more of a literal translation giving us the unvarnished Verne.
Unfortunately there is much error in the typography requiring much
editorial redaction, in addition to the normal OCR difficulties and
spelling variations from page to page.

One interesting feature of the Seaside Library edition is the
confusion of "u" with "n". These two letters are identical
typographically, but there are notches indicating the top and bottom.
It appears that after typesetting a junior or apprentice distributed
the type into the type boxes, carelessly confusing several "u"
'sand"n" 's. There was obviously not much opportunity for proof
reading in this high speed operation.

-- 
Norman Wolcott, nwolcott2 at post.harvard.edu

Received on Tue 04 Sep 2007 - 23:08:49 IDT

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