Update on Verne's Journey to the Center/Centre of the Earth

[Tony Nance]

Earlier this week I mentioned here that I'd picked up an interesting Tor
edition of Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth[1], and I was
about to start reading it.

Update: I lasted less than one page, when that page featured characters
I'd never heard of: Who the heck are Professor Hardwigg and his nephew
Harry? What happened to Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel?

So, off to the internet, down a rabbit hole, add in a chance visit to a
book store and here's a quick summary:

It turns out, in academic vernacular, many translations of Verne's works
suck; and Tor used one of the sucky ones for its edition.

Quoting a Verne scholar and translator:
"... Journey to the Centre of the Earth[2] has been translated more than
ten times, ... The best-known version is the atrocious 1872 one which
rebaptizes Axel as Harry and Lidenbrock as Hardwigg, makes them both
Scottish, and finishes each paragraph with at least one totally invented
sentence. ..."

Aha.

So as a youth, however many times I read it, I somehow avoided the sucky
translation mentioned above. Yay me.

A chance visit to a book store turned up a more-faithful Lidenbrock/Axel
translation[3], which also includes a bunch of other additional info,
and I have enjoyed the first 38 pages.

Tony
[1] Yes, "Center"
[2] Yes, "Centre"
[3] This one a "Centre"

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Tony Nance
ten times, ... The best-known version is the atrocious 1872 one which
rebaptizes Axel as Harry and Lidenbrock as Hardwigg, makes them both
Scottish, and finishes each paragraph with at least one totally invented
sentence. ..."
Aha.
So as a youth, however many times I read it, I somehow avoided the sucky
translation mentioned above. Yay me.

That is in fact the version I read as a child, and the thing I most
starkly remember is that it is the first time I had ever seen ligatures
in printing.
--scott

[Tony Nance]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Tony Nance
ten times, ... The best-known version is the atrocious 1872 one which
rebaptizes Axel as Harry and Lidenbrock as Hardwigg, makes them both
Scottish, and finishes each paragraph with at least one totally invented
sentence. ..."
Aha.
So as a youth, however many times I read it, I somehow avoided the sucky
translation mentioned above. Yay me.

That is in fact the version I read as a child, and the thing I most
starkly remember is that it is the first time I had ever seen ligatures
in printing.
--scott

Interesting - in two ways, in fact:
1) My edition of the "atrocious" translation (Harry/Hardwigg) doesn't
have any ligatures at all. Anywhere.

2) It's possible that the edition I read as a youth would have been my
first exposure to ligatures in print. Either that, or the Greek
mythology book that I checked out a zillion times from the school library.

Tony

[Paul S Person]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Tony Nance
ten times, ... The best-known version is the atrocious 1872 one which
rebaptizes Axel as Harry and Lidenbrock as Hardwigg, makes them both
Scottish, and finishes each paragraph with at least one totally invented
sentence. ..."
Aha.
So as a youth, however many times I read it, I somehow avoided the sucky
translation mentioned above. Yay me.

That is in fact the version I read as a child, and the thing I most
starkly remember is that it is the first time I had ever seen ligatures
in printing.

If these are them <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)>,
I can remember when English teachers screamed when they weren't used,
as in, say, "encyclopedia" (where the second "e" should be, in some
English teacher sense, "ae" in ligature form).

But then, they also screamed when HTML didn't insert a second space
after stops.

[Jerry Brown]

Post by Tony Nance
Earlier this week I mentioned here that I'd picked up an interesting Tor
edition of Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth[1], and I was
about to start reading it.
Update: I lasted less than one page, when that page featured characters
I'd never heard of: Who the heck are Professor Hardwigg and his nephew
Harry? What happened to Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel?

In my teens I picked this edition up at a second hand bookshop...

and returned it a couple of days later, for the same reason.

[Tony Nance]

Post by Jerry Brown

Post by Tony Nance
Earlier this week I mentioned here that I'd picked up an interesting Tor
edition of Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth[1], and I was
about to start reading it.
Update: I lasted less than one page, when that page featured characters
I'd never heard of: Who the heck are Professor Hardwigg and his nephew
Harry? What happened to Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel?

In my teens I picked this edition up at a second hand bookshop...
and returned it a couple of days later, for the same reason.

Yeah - I guess if I'd read that edition first, I wouldn't have known any
better (at the time), but now I also wonder if I would have liked the
book as much.

Tony

[John Savard]

Post by Tony Nance
"... Journey to the Centre of the Earth[2] has been translated more than
ten times, ... The best-known version is the atrocious 1872 one which
rebaptizes Axel as Harry and Lidenbrock as Hardwigg, makes them both
Scottish, and finishes each paragraph with at least one totally invented
sentence. ..."

It's surprising you were lucky enough to encounter one of the good
translations first, as that "bes-known version" is nearly ubiquitous,
particularly as it's the only one in the public domain.

But in an *accurate* translation, we learn the narrator's father, who
accompanies him underground, is an anti-Semite, which today tends to
make us root for the first dinosaur that wants to gobble him up.

John Savard