Villette and The Professor in the Baltic countries and Poland

Latvia

A Latvian translation of Villette was published by Daugava, from Riga, in 2 volumes (279 and 380 pp.), as Pilsētiņa (little city). The first volume, published in 2011 has already been described in the cover top six article. The second volume was published in 2012. The translation was done by Dagnija Dreika, who apart from Jane Eyre translated all of the Brontë novels, as well as Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Cover of the first volume of the
2011-12 Pilsētiņa
(Painting: Louis Marie de Schryver-Flower
sellers on the Champs-Elysees
(1890))

Cover of the second volume of the
2011-12 Pilsētiņa
(Painting: Joseph Caraud-Midday
stroll (1874))

Photograph of Dagnija Dreika

The translation of The Professor by Dagnija Dreika was first published in 2005 (307 pp.) by Skarabejs, from Riga. It had a reprint in 2015, by Daugava (288 pp.). The title is Skolotājs, which translates as teacher or schoolmaster.

Cover of the 2005 Skolotājs

Cover of the 2015 Skolotājs
(Painting: Edmund Blair Leighton
The New Governess (1894))

Nastavnitsa, ili pansion v Brussele and other early Villette translations

Soon after Villette was published in January 1853, it was translated into other languages. German and Russian translations were the first, in the same year. A Danish version followed, in the winter of 1853-1854. A Dutch translation was published in 1856. But that was it, as far as is known, for a long time. I could find no early Villettes in other countries. This article gives a description of the early (non-French) translations.

Germany
Villette got to three editions in Germany in 1853. Along with the aforementioned English language Tauchnitz Villette (in two volumes) there were two translations. Tauchnitz registered the novel in Germany in December 1852. On 24 February 1853, the Allgemeine Bibliographie Deutschland had a notice about the publication of the Tauchnitz Villette. That’s about one month after the Smith, Elder & Co Villette in England was published.

The Berlin Villette
In 1853 Dunker und Humblot from Berlin published a copyrighted German translation of Villette (in three volumes).  “Mit erworbenem Űbersetzungsrecht für Deutschland,” it says on the title page, ‘with acquired translation rights for Germany.’ The translation was done by Johann August Diezmann, who also did other translations of English works, like Thackeray’s Esmond, and French works, for instance of George Sand. He wrote several books about Goethe as well, among a number of other works.
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has digitized this work, so here you can read Volume 1, Volume 2  and  Volume 3.

Title page of the Berlin Villette

The Stuttgart Villette
The southwestern German state of Württemberg, in which Stuttgart is situated, was not part of the Zollverein, the group of German states that had accepted the Anglo-German copyright treaty. The Berlin Villette could not therefore claim copyright for all of Germany, which it did. The Stuttgart translation (in two volumes), doesn’t mention anything about copyright, and must be regarded as a pirate (although it’s not an illegal version).
This translation was published by Franckh from Stuttgart. The translator was Christoph Friedrich Grieb, who also did a translation of Thackeray’s Esmond, as well as his Vanity fair. Grieb also wrote A dictionary of the English and German languages, among a lot of other works. For several years he did live in America, before going back to Germany, and settling at Stuttgart. There he also wrote an anti-slavery novel, Sklavenleben in Amerika.