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Re: Pym and Sphinx

From: Rick Walter~at~comcast.net <rick1walter~at~comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2010 19:22:01 -0600
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

>I haven't seen the book itself and don't know how complete the text is.

I own ISBN 2-258-06954-8, the Omnibus ed. with Aziza's preface and critical
materials: Verne's text is complete, Baudelaire's translation of Pym is
likewise complete, plus the volume also includes the full texts of Verne's
Poe study and Baudelaire's two studies.

I can't say if this is "the first joint edition of both Poe's Pym and JV's
Sphinx des glaces," to use Brian's phrasing. But it's dated 2005 and thus
precedes the 2008 Coachwhip edition he mentions -- which, in any case, is
necessarily incomplete.

Because, for the record, the sole English translation of Sphinx (the 1898
one attributed to Hoey) is heavily abridged, chopping a good third of the
novel. Reissues (e.g., Horne's) condense it still further. Consequently
there has never been a complete Sphinx in English.

Also for the record, then, I'm currently under contract -- as Brian knows --
to produce the first complete English translation of this fascinating novel.
I've been hard at work on it, and the volume will also include Poe's full
Pym text, which I finished editing last month. I'm scheduled to deliver the
whole volume in June 2011. BTW, what makes this project exceptionally moving
and pleasurable is the online availability, as a supplement to the published
French, of Verne's MS at the Bibliothèque municipale de Nantes. As Bill
Butcher must know better than anybody, it's both thrilling and moving to
watch JV's mind ticking away while you're in the throes of rendering and
researching a decent English text.

Warmest regards,
Rick Walter in Albuquerque.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ernest Sjogren" <esjogren~at~nc.rr.com>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 3:32 PM
Subject: Re: Pym and Sphinx


>> I wonder if this is indeed the first such "complete" joint edition -- and
>> if it is as unusual in other languages as in English?
>
> Pym and SG were published together in French by Omnibus, in 2005 (ISBN
> 2-258-06954-8), with an introductory essay by Claude Aziza:
>
> http://www.decitre.fr/livres/L-etrange-histoire-d-Arthur-Gordon-Pym.aspx/9782258069541
>
> I haven't seen the book itself and don't know how complete the text is.
>
> In Russian there's a collection that includes these two works, as well as
> other continuations of Pym by H. P. Lovecraft, Charles Stross, Charles
> Romyn Dake, and Andrey Balabukh published by Azbuka-Klassica in 2006. The
> Balabukh piece looks to be an introductiory essay, although the table of
> contents as given on the website does not specify.
>
> http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2620089/
>
> Andrey Balabukh appears to be a contemporary Russian writer (born 1947).
> Charles Stross is a contemporary American science fiction author.
> Lovecraft wrote during the first half of the 20th century. Charles Romyn
> Dake seems to have authored only this one work, a continuation of Pym
> (acc. to the write-up on him in the Russian Wikipedia), which was
> published two years after SG and was written w/o the author being aware of
> SG. It is available from Project Gutenberg in English.
>
> I haven't seen this collection, either--never heard of it before this
> afternoon--and do not know how complete the Verne translation is. Russian
> translations of Verne are often extensively cut, but others are excellent;
> the Poe translation (by Bal'mont) is well known, and I think the standard
> one.
>
> Ernie Sjogren
Received on Mon 07 Jun 2010 - 04:22:13 IDT

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