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Old Favorites in New English Translations

From: Rick Walter~at~comcast.net <rick1walter~at~comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 18:11:05 -0700
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Dear Friends,



I'm pleased and proud to announce the publication of a handy omnibus of some of Jules Verne's best-loved novels, available now from SUNY Press/Excelsior Editions ($24.95 pb; ISBN 978-1-4384-3238-0). Amazing Journeys: Five Visionary Classics offers my new, complete translations of Journey to the Center of the Earth; From the Earth to the Moon; Circling the Moon; 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas; and Around the World in 80 Days. The book also includes a foreword celebrating Verne's unique mix of science and show business, individual introductions to each novel, textual notes, recommendations for further reading, and dozens of classic engravings by Riou, Montaut, Roux, de Neuville, Férat, and others.

 

Over recent decades, as you know, Verne has fared tremendously well in America, and scholarly editions of many less-familiar titles are now available on the U.S. market. This item, however, is for the general reader. America is full of smart people who aren't literary scholars but who would love to get acquainted or reacquainted with Verne's essential works. Amazing Journeys is aimed at them.

 

Over the years, I've translated six full novels and three fragments by Verne, and in the process, I recall hobnobbing with scores of scientists and engineers. One thing popped up time and again: they adore Jules Verne. They grew up with his tales, he shaped their lives and careers. The same goes for science fiction buffs, today's high school students, and countless others. These readers aren't literary scholars, yet they, too, deserve the authentic Verne. But there are so many watered-down adaptations and condensations out there, and a good modern English translation of Autour de la Lune hasn't been commercially available for three decades!

 

Since Verne was a science buff with a showbiz background, he also shaped my own life: for decades I've earned my living as a scriptwriter & broadcaster, and my lifelong hobby has been fossil hunting. So, as the first factor in this dual equation, I've worked to make Verne's science clear and accurate-something that's far easier now that the internet is so enormously developed. In the early 90s I did a lot of Vernian research, but it was on my hands and knees in dingy library stacks or in front of museum specimen drawers-many problems never got solved at all. But today I can pay electronic visits to original French sources that Verne himself consulted, so the litanies of fish in 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas or the catalogs of craters in Circling the Moon can finally make sense to English-speaking readers.

 

As for the showbiz half of the equation, I've put extra energy into rendering the wit, humor, and comic hijinks in Verne's yarns. Few readers realize that he scripted sitcoms in his early career and was a top-flight gag writer. Not surprisingly, that gift for comedy carried over into the novels, yet much of it has gotten lost in translation. Hopefully not here-Verne is one of literature's slyest humorists and satirists, and I've been burning calories to put this over in these new translations.

 

All five, needless to say, are complete down to the smallest substantive detail, benefiting immeasurably from the many available online texts, the electronic accessibility of the manuscripts housed in the Nantes municipal library, and the countless achievements of contemporary Verne scholarship.



Here are the book's vitals:

 

Jules Verne: Amazing Journeys: Five Visionary Classics

$24.95 paperback; ISBN 978-1-4384-3238-0

680 pages; 40 b/w illustrations

Excelsior Editions, an imprint of State University of New York Press

 

Ordering details and additional information are available at the publisher's site, http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5036-amazing-journeys.aspx. Or you can visit Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/ Amazing-Journeys-Visionary-Classics-Excelsior/dp/1438432380/ref=sr13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid= 1263075919&sr=1-3

 

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed channeling it!

 

All the best,

 

Frederick Paul Walter

Albuquerque, New Mexico

 
Received on Thu 04 Feb 2010 - 03:11:26 IST

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