Re: (Tears) Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

In article <robertaw-3B5DD9.10154013102024@news.individual.net>,
Robert Woodward  <robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:

In article <veggl8$qc7$1@panix2.panix.com>,
jdnicoll@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo, volume 1) by
Jules Verne
 
Professor Pierre Aronnax sets out to classify what he hopes is a
novel species of narwhal, only to find himself on board a
submarine captained by a self-exiled genius.
 
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/like-the-ocean

>
My copy of this is an early 1960s Scholastic Book Library edition
without translator credit or credit for the one interior illustration.
The ISFDB doesn't acknowledge the Scholastic Book edition I have, but it
appears to be the Louis Mercier translation from the 19th century.
>
--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
�-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com

There was some news item of 10 years or so ago to the effect that Leagues
had never received a decent translation (not just 'it reads like it was
translated!', but dropping characers & plot points -- that kind of thing),
and that someone connected with the Navy had now done one,
and it was much improved:

Oh, here it is:

https://www.amazon.com/20-000-Leagues-Under-Sea/dp/0870216783

For the past 120 years, readers of English have known only
a poor imitation of Jules Verne's classic French novel Vingt
Mille Lieues Sous les Mers and consequently relegated the
writer to the category of a "boy's author". Since 1873 the
standard English version has been Lewis Mercier's mangled
"translation," a work that's filled with errors, mistranslations,
and bogus additions, and missing nearly a quarter of Verne's
original text.

Now, thanks to the life-long efforts of two Verne scholars,
the English-speaking world at last has access to a definitive
translation, the only English version based solely on the
level of literary artist and scientific visionary, a category
he has always enjoyed in Europe and Russia.

Mercier's act of literary vandalism went unnoticed until
1965, when New York University English professor Walter
Miller discovered the missing text and began the restoration
of the Verne masterpiece. After nearly thirty years of work,
including rigorous examinations of his translation by experts
in marine technology and biology, Miller teamed that Frederick
Paul Walter in 1992 to create this landmark scientific and
literary achievement.

Restored to the volume along with the original woodcut
illustrations are the entertaining and often prescient drams
of Captain Nemo, widely considered the prototypical
science-fiction character. In this novel alone Verne has
anticipated submarine diving planes, scuba gear, underwater
laboratories, and marine ecological disasters. He also
inspired large-scale underwater mining and farming of flora
and fauna, and electricity from thermoclines, all currently
in development.

Restoration of these visionary ideas and some twenty-three
percent of the original text is certain to elevate Verne's
standing in American scientific and literary circles.
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