All the Brontë novels
It’s an exciting race for the top scorer competition of the amount of languages.
Wuthering Heights has taken the lead, with 51 languages.
Jane Eyre has 49. But there must be more. As a comparison Lewis Carroll’s
Alice in Wonderland can be given. It has 174 languages.
Jane Eyre especially, who is almost as iconic as Alice, should be able to come considerably closer. It is interesting to note that
Jane Eyre took a 11-1 lead in the 19th century, against
Wuthering Heights.
Villette is a very good third, with 31 languages. On fourth place come
The Professor and
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, with 28.
Shirley has 27.
Agnes Grey is last, with 25. There will be more for them too.
One would think that the amount of translated editions of
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,
Shirley and
Agnes Grey come close to the amount of
The Professor (150). I would guess that there are at least about 2500 translated editions of
Wuthering Heights and
Jane Eyre, each. Of both braille versions have also been found, but, especially because they are in English braille, these cannot be regarded as translations.
Update 29 December 2016. The latest scores are:
Wuthering Heights 61,
Jane Eyre 59,
Villette 31,
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 30,
Shirley 29,
The Professor 28 and
Agnes Grey 26.
In tables 8a-e you can see all the languages that have been found. The first two tables have the year in which the first translations of Villette and The Professor in a certain language was published.
Table 9 gives the full list of translations of
Villette and
The Professor since 1853.
 |
| 1853-1872 |
 |
| 1874-1944 |
 |
| 1945-1956 |
 |
| 1957-1970 |
 |
| 1971-1977 |
 |
| 1978-1990 |
 |
| 1991-1997 |
 |
| 1998-2004 |
 |
| 2005-2008 |
 |
| 2009-2012 |
 |
| 2013-2015 |
 |
| 2016-2017 |
Eric Ruijssenaars
2 comments:
Very informative, thank you! I only wish there were such a list for The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Hello Julia,
Thank you for your compliment. Yes, it would be great if someone would do it with Anne's novels. Best wishes,
Eric
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