Jules Verne rankings (recommendations)
Howard
Island' (last month) and just finished reading From the Earth to the
Moon. I now have to decide what other Verne novels I want (need?) to
read.
I think I'm going to order 'Around the World in Eighty Days' and
'Journey to the Center of the Earth' from Amazon (I've heard good
things about the William Butcher translations), so my question would
be what are the other "essential" Verne books?
I have copies of 'Paris in the 20th Century' and 'The Chase ofthe
Golden Meteor' on my shelves, but have not read either.
Of the three I've read so far, I think I enjoyed Mysterious Island
much more than the other two (I loved all three, though). Island
seems like it much more plot driven and a bit deeper characters.
Matthias Warkus
> So I've recently read 20,000 Leagues (in Jan) and 'The Mysterious
> Island' (last month) and just finished reading From the Earth to the
> Moon. I now have to decide what other Verne novels I want (need?) to
> read.
>
> I think I'm going to order 'Around the World in Eighty Days' and
> 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' from Amazon (I've heard good
> things about the William Butcher translations), so my question would
> be what are the other "essential" Verne books?
"From the Earth to the Moon" and "Around the Moon", of course. I liked
"The Begum's Millions" a lot, too. The rest of his technology-centric
stuff I read, such as "Robur the Conqueror", "Propeller Island" etc., is
actually pretty disappointing IMHO, but YMMV.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Howard
wrote:
Is there a "recommended" translation of "Around the Moon" ? I read
the Miller annotated translation of "From the Earth to the Moon". I'm
trying to be careful and pick translations that are believed to be
faithful to Verne, since I've seen a lot of comments about how bad
some of common translations are.
Matthias Warkus
> Is there a "recommended" translation of "Around the Moon" ? I read
> the Miller annotated translation of "From the Earth to the Moon". I'm
> trying to be careful and pick translations that are believed to be
> faithful to Verne, since I've seen a lot of comments about how bad
> some of common translations are.
No idea. Apparently, most of the English Verne translations are so
appalling that it's perhaps best to read it in some other translation in
the foreign language of your choise. Or bite the bullet and read it in
French.
mawa
--
http://www.prellblog.de
Mike Dworetsky
news:fa5aa970-cdc0-472e...@v3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
The "must read" Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea edition is the US
Naval Institute edition newly restored and translated by W. Miller and F.
Walther (c 1993). This is unabridged, brings back the original about as
well as it can (given that it was a serial before being a book), and
corrects scientific and translation errors introduced by later translators.
It also uses the original illustrations. I highly recommend it.
You can buy it through Amazon or other second hand Internet markets.
--
Mike Dworetsky
(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)
Howard
wrote:
> "Howard" <rayc_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
That's actually the version of 20,000 Leagues that I have (which I
read in Jan of this year). I did think it was excellent, though as I
said above, I actually like Mysterious Island more (it's the Jordan
Stump translation published by Modern Library)
William December Starr
Howard <rayc...@hotmail.com> said:
> Is there a "recommended" translation of "Around the Moon" ? I
> read the Miller annotated translation of "From the Earth to the
> Moon". I'm trying to be careful and pick translations that are
> believed to be faithful to Verne, since I've seen a lot of
> comments about how bad some of common translations are.
On this topic: does anyone know of a data source that identifies the
translators of various editions of Verne's works? For example,
MITSFS just got in, as a donation, a hardcover omnibus of FROM THE
EARTH TO THE MOON and AROUND THE MOON that was published by
"Heritage Press" in 1970 and which doesn't identify the
translator(s) anywhere, grump.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Ahasuerus
> On Mar 7, 11:10 am, Matthias Warkus <War...@students.uni-marburg.de>
> wrote:
> > Howard schrieb:
> >
> > > So I've recently read 20,000 Leagues (in Jan) and 'The Mysterious
> > > Island' (last month)
Did you realize that Ayrton, who appeared in _The Mysterious Island_,
was also a character in Verne's earlier _Les Enfants du capitaine
Grant_ (English translations as _Captain Grant's Children_, _In Search
of the Castaways_, _The Castaways_, etc)?
> > > and just finished reading From the Earth to the Moon
> > > I now have to decide what other Verne novels I want (need?) to read.
> > >
> > > I think I'm going to order 'Around the World in Eighty Days' and
> > > 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' from Amazon (I've heard good
> > > things about the William Butcher translations), so my question would
> > > be what are the other "essential" Verne books?
> >
> > "From the Earth to the Moon" and "Around the Moon", of course.
Note that there is a third installment in the series, _Sans dessus
dessous_ (1889), a short novel variously translated as _The Purchase
of the North Pole_ (1890, abridged by I.O. Evans for the 1966 edition)
and as _Topsy-Turvy_ (1890). The novel is mediocre and the
translations are poor, but there is no harm in checking out the
Gutenberg e-text.
Other notable series and sequels by Verne include _Robur-le-
Conquérant_ (1886) (Eng. tr. _Robur the Conqueror_ and _The Clipper of
the Clouds_) and its sequel _Maître du monde _ (1904) (Eng. tr. _The
Master of the World_) as well as _Seconde patrie_ (1900) (Eng. tr. in
2 volumes _Their Island Home_ and _The Castaways of the Flag_),
Verne's sequel to Johann David Wyss' _The Swiss Family Robinson_
(1812), and _Le Sphinx des glaces_ (1897) (Eng. tr. _An Antarctic
Mystery_ and _Captain Len Guy_), a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's _The
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket_ (1838).
> > I liked "The Begum's Millions" a lot, too.
Although _Les Cinq cents millions de la Bégum_ (Eng. tr. _The Begum's
Fortune_ and _The Begum's Millions_) is usually attributed to Verne,
the novel was originally written by André Laurie (aka Paschal
Grousset) and rewritten by Verne. It's not one of his better known
titles and his (their?) constant reminders that "Germans = bad,
Frenchmen = good" (it appeared less than a decade after the war of
1870) get old after a while, but it had some interesting technology.
See http://jv.gilead.org.il/FAQ/#C14 for a list of other Verne
collaborations.
> > The rest of his technology-centric
> > stuff I read, such as "Robur the Conqueror", "Propeller Island" etc., is
> > actually pretty disappointing IMHO, but YMMV.
>
> Is there a "recommended" translation of "Around the Moon" ? I read
> the Miller annotated translation of "From the Earth to the Moon". I'm
> trying to be careful and pick translations that are believed to be
> faithful to Verne, since I've seen a lot of comments about how bad
> some of common translations are.
There is "A Bibliography of Jules Verne's English Translations" by
Arthur B. Evans at http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/VerneTrans(biblio).html
. It ranks all English translations using a simple convention: "For
each Verne novel, the best English translations in terms of
completeness, accuracy, and style are marked with a star; those of
relatively good quality are marked with a check; and the poorest ones
are marked with a black ball." It's a very useful resource, but it may
not be 100% up to date since a number of new translations have
appeared recently.
There are a few things to keep in mind when approaching Verne's work,
especially the 54 "Les Voyages Extraordinaires" (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyages_Extraordinaires), for the first time.
The early "Voyages", roughly numbers 1-18 on the list, are more
upbeat. They are also the ones that made Verne's reputation and many
of them eventually became classics of the genre. Numbers 19-54 are
occasionally darker and generally weaker; most of them have been
forgotten except, perhaps, the Robur books, something that Verne may
have Vincent Price to thank for, at least in the English speaking
world. Parenthetically, Verne's first major SF novel, _Paris au XXe
Siecle_ (written in 1863, published in 1994) (Eng. tr. _Paris in the
Twentieth Century_) was much darker than the semi-juvenile novels that
his publisher forced him to produce instead and which made him famous.
There are also 8 posthumously published novels, which appeared between
1905 and 1920, but they were heavily edited, rewritten (or even
written from Verne's notes) by his son, Michel Verne, who published
them as by Jules Verne alone. _L'Étonnante Aventure de la mission
Barsac_ (1919) (Eng. tr. in 2 volumes, _The Barsac Mission: Into the
Niger Bend_ and _The City of the Sahara_, 1960) was perhaps the most
interesting of the bunch, but the updated technology made it feel a
little un-Vernesques.
BTW, I thought that the first posthumous novel, _Le Phare du bout du
monde_ (1905) (Eng. tr. _Kongre the Wrecker: Lighthouse at the End of
the World_ and _The Lighthouse at the End of the World_) was fairly
routine, but Wikipedia says that "[a]lthough not as well known as
Verne's other novels, it is generally considered as good by Verne's
fans and the literature critics", so YMMV.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Verne's "Voyages" run the gamut
from fairly straightforward adventures with little scientific or
speculative content like _Michel Strogoff_ (Eng. tr. _Michael
Strogoff_) to extravagant off-planet romps like _Hector Servadac_
(Eng. tr. as _Hector Servadac_ and _Off on a Comet_; also in 2 volumes
as _To the Sun?_ and _Off on a Comet_ and abridged as another 2 volume
set, _Anomalous Phenomena_ and _Homeward Bound_ -- see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_on_a_Comet#Publication_History for
all the gory details). Quite a few Voyages, e.g. the previously
mentioned _In Search of the Castaways_, _Cinq Semaines en ballon_
(Eng. tr. _Five Weeks in a Balloon_), _Le Tour du Monde en quatre-
vingts jours_ (Eng. tr. _Around the World in Eighty Days_) and _Un
Capitaine de quinze ans_ (Eng. tr. _Dick Sand_, _Dick Sands_, _Captain
at Fifteen_, _Boy Captain_), are globe- (or at least continent-)
spanning adventures which read like SF because back in the 1860s
central Africa seemed as alien and inaccessible as the Moon today.
Now that you are done with the Nemo novels and soon to be done with
the (first two) Baltimore Gun Club ones, I would suggest _Voyage au
centre de la Terre_ (Eng. tr. _Journey to the Center of the Earth_)
and _Around the World in Eighty Days_ next. Since you liked _The
Mysterious Island_ so much, you might as well read _In Search of the
Castaways_ (see above for variant titles), although it's a bit too
long and episodic IMHO. After that I am tempted to suggest _Off on a
Comet_, which, admittedly, is not one of Verne's better known novels
and has been something of a bete noir because of certain anti-semitic
passages, but it's also a superior example of a tour of the Solar
system the way they were done in the 19th century. Unfortunately, none
of the standard translations are perfect (see the Wikipedia article
referenced above and the follow the links to various off-site
versions), so your ability to enjoy the novel will depend on your
tolerance of stilted prose and poor editing.
If you are still craving Verne at that point, I would suggest _Michael
Strogoff_, _Five Weeks in a Balloon_, _Voyages et aventures du
capitaine Hatteras_ (Eng. tr. _Journeys and Adventures of Captain
Hatteras_), _The Begum's Millions_, _Robur the Conqueror_/_The Master
of the World_, and _Mathias Sandorf_ (a Count of Monte Cristo
pastiche) as a reasonable order of Verne consumption, but, as always,
mileage is liable to vary.
Cosmin Corbea
news:fa5aa970-cdc0-472e...@v3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> So I've recently read 20,000 Leagues (in Jan) and 'The Mysterious
> Island' (last month) and just finished reading From the Earth to the
> Moon. I now have to decide what other Verne novels I want (need?) to
> read.
>
> I think I'm going to order 'Around the World in Eighty Days' and
> 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' from Amazon (I've heard good
> things about the William Butcher translations)
Definitely get those two. As to others, Ahasuerus has posted an excellent
answer. I'd like to add "Le chateau des Carpathes" (The Castle of the
Carpathians) for it's rather unusual dark atmosphere (for Verne) and the
more humorous La Chasse au météore (The Chase of the Golden Meteor)
--
Regards,
Cosmin Corbea
Ahasuerus
[snip]
> On this topic: does anyone know of a data source that identifies the
> translators of various editions of Verne's works? For example,
> MITSFS just got in, as a donation, a hardcover omnibus of FROM THE
> EARTH TO THE MOON and AROUND THE MOON that was published by
> "Heritage Press" in 1970 and which doesn't identify the
> translator(s) anywhere, grump.
Harold Salemson was the translator and the Heritage Press edition is
considered superior. See http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/VerneTrans(biblio).html
for a review of various translations of Verne's books.
Mike Schilling
And, speaking of things being lost in translation, someone whould tell
the story about Verne, Asimov, and Asimov's father.
Ahasuerus
<cosminc@spa_mtrap.canada.com.invalid> wrote: [snip]
> Definitely get those two. As to others, Ahasuerus has posted an excellent
> answer. I'd like to add "Le chateau des Carpathes" (The Castle of the
> Carpathians) for it's rather unusual dark atmosphere (for Verne) and the
> more humorous La Chasse au météore (The Chase of the Golden Meteor)
Keep in mind that _La Chasse au météore_ (1909) was one of the
posthumously published novels. As we now know, its text was
significantly altered and expanded by Michel Verne -- see
http://jv.gilead.org.il/taves/Meteor.html for details. The original
French manuscript was eventually found and published by the Société
Jules Verne and an English translation appeared a couple of years ago
as _The Meteor Hunt_ -- see http://www.amazon.com/Meteor-Hunt-Translation-Manuscript-Imagination/dp/0803296347
I wasn't particularly impressed by _The Chase of the Golden Meteor_
when I read it, but perhaps the restored version will be better.
Howard
> On Mar 8, 1:22 am, "Cosmin Corbea"
>
> <cosminc@spa_mtrap.canada.com.invalid> wrote: [snip]
> > Definitely get those two. As to others, Ahasuerus has posted an excellent
> > answer. I'd like to add "Le chateau des Carpathes" (The Castle of the
> > Carpathians) for it's rather unusual dark atmosphere (for Verne) and the
> > more humorous La Chasse au météore (The Chase of the Golden Meteor)
>
> Keep in mind that _La Chasse au météore_ (1909) was one of the
> posthumously published novels. As we now know, its text was
> French manuscript was eventually found and published by the Société
> Jules Verne and an English translation appeared a couple of years ago
>
> I wasn't particularly impressed by _The Chase of the Golden Meteor_
> when I read it, but perhaps the restored version will be better.
Yah, I realized that I have "The Chase of the Golden Meteor" in the
previous translation. I think I'll find the new restored version
before I tackle it.
Howard
<cosminc@spa_mtrap.canada.com.invalid> wrote:
> "Howard" <rayc_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Thanks...I"m going to order the two from Amazon now.
Howard
>
> Did you realize that Ayrton, who appeared in _The Mysterious Island_,
> was also a character in Verne's earlier _Les Enfants du capitaine
> Grant_ (English translations as _Captain Grant's Children_, _In Search
> of the Castaways_, _The Castaways_, etc)?
>
I had hear this, but have never seend a copy of "The Castaways"
>
> Note that there is a third installment in the series, _Sans dessus
> dessous_ (1889), a short novel variously translated as _The Purchase
> of the North Pole_ (1890, abridged by I.O. Evans for the 1966 edition)
> and as _Topsy-Turvy_ (1890). The novel is mediocre and the
> translations are poor, but there is no harm in checking out the
> Gutenberg e-text.
Miller mentions this in the annotations in "From the Earth to the
Moon", which was the first time I had heard of it.
> Other notable series and sequels by Verne include _Robur-le-
> Conquérant_ (1886) (Eng. tr. _Robur the Conqueror_ and _The Clipper of
> the Clouds_) and its sequel _Maître du monde _ (1904) (Eng. tr. _The
> Master of the World_) as well as _Seconde patrie_ (1900) (Eng. tr. in
> 2 volumes _Their Island Home_ and _The Castaways of the Flag_),
> Verne's sequel to Johann David Wyss' _The Swiss Family Robinson_
> (1812), and _Le Sphinx des glaces_ (1897) (Eng. tr. _An Antarctic
> Mystery_ and _Captain Len Guy_), a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's _The
> Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket_ (1838).
>
>
> Although _Les Cinq cents millions de la Bégum_ (Eng. tr. _The Begum's
> Fortune_ and _The Begum's Millions_) is usually attributed to Verne,
> the novel was originally written by André Laurie (aka Paschal
> Grousset) and rewritten by Verne. It's not one of his better known
> titles and his (their?) constant reminders that "Germans = bad,
> Frenchmen = good" (it appeared less than a decade after the war of
> 1870) get old after a while, but it had some interesting technology.
> Seehttp://jv.gilead.org.il/FAQ/#C14for a list of other Verne
> collaborations.
>
>
> There is "A Bibliography of Jules Verne's English Translations" by
> Arthur B. Evans athttp://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/VerneTrans(biblio).html
> . It ranks all English translations using a simple convention: "For
> each Verne novel, the best English translations in terms of
> completeness, accuracy, and style are marked with a star; those of
> relatively good quality are marked with a check; and the poorest ones
> are marked with a black ball." It's a very useful resource, but it may
> not be 100% up to date since a number of new translations have
> appeared recently.
>
> There are a few things to keep in mind when approaching Verne's work,
> especially the 54 "Les Voyages Extraordinaires" (http://
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyages_Extraordinaires), for the first time.
> The early "Voyages", roughly numbers 1-18 on the list, are more
> upbeat. They are also the ones that made Verne's reputation and many
> of them eventually became classics of the genre. Numbers 19-54 are
> occasionally darker and generally weaker; most of them have been
> forgotten except, perhaps, the Robur books, something that Verne may
> have Vincent Price to thank for, at least in the English speaking
> world. Parenthetically, Verne's first major SF novel, _Paris au XXe
> Siecle_ (written in 1863, published in 1994) (Eng. tr. _Paris in the
> Twentieth Century_) was much darker than the semi-juvenile novels that
> his publisher forced him to produce instead and which made him famous.
What do you think of "Paris in the Twentieth Century"? I have a copy
of it, and may tackled it next.
Thanks a lot...that's a very nice summary! I had found
http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/VerneTrans(biblio).html just the other
day, so I'm going to try and use it as a guide for the translations.
Ahasuerus
> What do you think of "Paris in the Twentieth Century"? I have a copy
Well, any novel published almost a hundred years after its (famous)
writer's death is liable to make his fans salivate, but I wasn't
impressed. You can read it as a laundry list of predictions, some of
them reasonably accurate and some of them completely off, but
fundamentally it's a dystopia and a fairly crudely executed dystopia
at that.
> Thanks a lot...that's a very nice summary!
You are quite welcome. BTW, if you ever run out of Verne novels (he
wrote relatively few stories), there are some Verne pastiches,
parodies and "secret histories" going back to at least Albert Robida's
_Voyage très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul_ (1879) (no English
translation that I am aware of). Verne's characters, or close
approximations thereof, appear in Simon Hawke's (aka Nicholas
Yermakov) Time Wars books and are featured front and center in Thomas
F. Monteleone's _The Secret Sea_ and Philip José Farmer's _The Other
Log of Phileas Fogg_. Farmer's novel is set in the Wold Newton
universe (http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp3.htm), his ultimate
crossover project, which was later fleshed out by his fans (http://
www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/WNUsitemap.htm) to include other famous
adventure/SF/crime characters. Jules Verne also makes occasional
appearances as a character in modern SF, e.g. in Gregory Benford and
David Brin's "Paris Conquers All" published in _War of the Worlds:
Global Dispatches_ (1996).
Unfortunately, I am yet to find a Verne-flavored story that would be
in the same league as Verne's classics, although Farmer's novel has
its admirers. Perhaps you just need more of them before you can beat
Sturgeon's Law (cf. Sherlock Holmes pastiches).
Joseph T Major
Wesleyan University Press has a new annotated translation of "Les Cinq
Cents Millions de la Begum" as "The Begum's Millions", and I've been told
they take care in their translations. The earlier translation I read (as
"The Begum's Fortune") apparently included some rewriting -- one part of
which ends up making more sense than the original! But it wasn't as good
overall.
Some of their editions cost big bucks. This one is $29.95, which is not
as expensive as it could be but is not cheap either. Maybe you can persuade
a library to spring for it.
Intereestingly, in regard to the "connections" between other books
mentioned other places in this thread, in "Robur-le-conquerant" ("Robur the
Conqueror") there is a reference to "The Begum's Millions".
Joseph T Major
Ahasuerus
wrote:
Is it the one about Asimov's father mentioning that yes, of course, he
was familiar with science fiction, e.g. he had read Zhoul Vairn, and
Asimov wondering what that Zhoul Vairn guy may have written? If so, I
wonder which edition of Verne's works his dad had encountered. If he
read Verne in Russian in the 1900s-1910s, there was a good chance that
it was the infamous "collected works" edition which was hastily put
together in 1906 during the first Russian revolution. The publisher
wanted to take advantage of the effective (and, as it turned out,
temporary) abolition of censorship and printed a cheap edition of most
of Verne's books... each one about 40 (sic) pages long.
Mike Schilling
And when his father said "Traveling to the moon and going around the
world in 80 days", Asimov said, in his native Brooklynese, "Oh, you
mean Jools Voin", and his father said "Who?"
robo
writers doing Verne? I think Eric Brown, the UK Sf writer edited it. Brown
also has a Verne novella out from PS publishing. There is some interesting
criticism out there on Verne as well. I have been reading Jean Chesneaux's
The Political and Social Ideals of Jules Verne. It is highly
recommended....
Howard
No, I've not seen it. I'll take a look and see if it's something I
should try.