Villette and The Professor in the Nordic countries

Denmark
After the 1853-4 Danish Villette there has only been one more translation of Villette. It was published in 1976 by Hernov, in cooperation with the Nyt Dansk Litteraturselskab (552 pp.), and translated by Luise Pihl, who also did The Professor, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, as well as several Jane Austen books. In 1994 it was released as an audiobook, on cassette tapes. Earlier, in 1986, a Danish Villette was also published as an audiobook on cassette tapes, but it’s not entirely clear if this is the Pihl translation too. It’s very likely though.

Cover of the 1976 Danish Villette

The Professor

Charlotte’s posthumously published first novel was quickly translated in Danish. Laereren. En Fortaelling was published in the same year, 1857 (Kopenhagen; 360 pp.). The name of the translator is not given. The title page gives Fr. Waldike as the publisher. It published books until at least 1868.
On the title page it also says ‘Expeditionen af Husbibliotheket’, Expedition of house library, in translation. Two more books are known with this text, both from 1857 too (translations from Thackeray and Hawthorne).

Villette and The Professor in Hungary

Villette

Ilona Róna (1904-199?) translated many books, for instance of Jane Austen, Wiliam Makepeace Thackeray and Gore Vidal, and also from other languages. Villette was her only Brontë translation. It is the only Hungarian translation of the novel. It first appeared in 1967, twice, published by Európa from Budapest (566 pp.).

Cover of the first 1967 Hungarian
Villette

Cover of the second 1967 Hungarian
Villette

The third and four editions, published in 1969 and 1973 (by the same publisher; 586 and 537 pp. respectively) had the same cover as the second edition. In 1974 it was again published, in two volumes (319 and 334 pp.), together with Charlotte’s Henry Hastings, by the same publisher, as well as in two other 1974 editions with both stories, firstly by Európa  and Alföldi Ny from Debrecen. and secondly by Európa, Alföldi Ny and Madách Kiadó from Bratislava (Slovakia).

Villette and The Professor in Czechia and Slovakia

 Czechia

Villette
The first Czech Villette was published in two volumes in 1907-8 by Jan Laichter from Prague (369 and 393 pp.), in a translation by Zdeněk Franta (1868-1943). He also translated Jane Eyre and Shirley, as well as for instance Dickens’ Little Dorrit and Bleak House.
The second edition of this work was published by Jan Laichter again in 1928. Whereas in the first edition the author’s name was just given as Charlotte Brontë, twenty years later that was strangely changed into Karolina Brontëová. It’s a remarkable echo of the old rumour that Caroline was the author’s first name (as shown by an article I wrote in 2011). This 1928 edition (376 and 400 pp.) doesn’t seem to mention the translator’s name.

The covers of the 1928 Czech Villette

The third edition of Franta’s translation was published in 1948, again by Jan Laichter (422 and 443 pp.). Apart from nrs. 1 and 2 the two covers are identical.

Cover of the first volume of the 1948
Czech Villette

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))

Villette and The Professor in Dutch – Part two

Villette continued

The sixth translation, by Nannie Nieland-Weits, was published by Muntinga (Amsterdam) in 2008, in which year it had two editions. It was published as a ‘Rainbow pocket’ (675 pp.). Nieland-Weits has translated many books, also from French and German, and wrote a book about Jane Austen.

Cover of the 2008 Muntinga Villette
(Painting: Pierre Auguste Renoir -
La liseuse (c. 1874-6))

The seventh and so far last translation was published in 2010 by Reader’s Digest (Amsterdam/Brussels). It’s an ‘adaptation’ (461 pp.). The book doesn’t mention who translated it. The cover is very dull.

Cover of the 2010 Reader's Digest
Villette

The Professor

The first Dutch translation of The Professor was published in early 1859, by Van Bolhuis Hoitsema (Groningen; 10 years earlier they published the first Dutch Jane Eyre). The title it got was Edward Crimsworth, with the subtitle, in translation, The life of a teacher. a story (vi + 304 pp.). The ‘Edward’ is quite remarkable of course, all the more so since at the beginning of the novel the name of William Crimsworth is given first in big letters. The book has the preface of the author and Arthur Bell Nicholls.

Cover of the 1859 Dutch
Edward Crimsworth