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Showing posts with label The Professor in French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Professor in French. Show all posts

Monday, 26 December 2016

The Professor in French, part two

Apart from the Swiss-French translation (of 1971) there are three other French translations of The Professor. By far the most successful one was done by Henriette Loreau. It is well possible that she began translating the novel in 1857, the year in which it was first published, posthumously. Loreau's Le Professeur was first published in 1858, by Hachette et Cie, from Paris (299 pp.). The last new edition so far of her translation dates from 2016! It brings her score to 158 years in the longest running translations competition, 64 years ahead of number 2. Henriette Loreau (1815-after 1883) also translated several Dickens novels and Mrs. Gaskell's Ruth, among other works.

Title page of the 1858 French
The Professor

This first edition has in recent years had two facsimile reprints, as print-on-demand books published by Reink Books (2014) and by Chapitre.com (year unknown).

The second edition was published in 1864, also by Hachette (and 299 pp.). It was like the first edition a copyrighted translation. "Traduit avec l'autorisation de l'éditeur" it says on the title pages. The 'editeur' is Smith, Elder & Co surely. It shows how much progress was made in a dozen years in international copyright matters, in a then very successful fight against pirate editions. Even though this 1864 edition especially may still have been an example of voluntary copyright. It's doubtful if the novel could have enjoyed an international copyright of more than 5 years in 1857.
A picture of the title page could not be found,

The third edition was published in 1867.

Cover of the 1867 French The Professor

Title page of the 1867 French The Professor
This 1867 edition was republished in facsimile this year, 2016, by Reink Books again (whom we also saw in the German The Professor article).