Hergé began writing the
Tintin adventures in 1929, and by the 1950s he had attained legendary
status in the francophone world. All of the Tintin adventures were
eventually translated into English, but not without some difficulty and
controversy. Apart from the Dutch edition for Belgium's Flemish population
there had been no translation work prior to 1952, when two volumes were
experimentally rendered in German, Spanish and English to keep pace with
Tintin's broadening international appeal. The house of Casterman, Hergé's
long-time publisher, issued all the first translations (Le Secret de la
Licorne, and Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge), but they have lost
track of the identity of the English translators. The 1952 editions are
rare collectors' items. By the end of the decade several foreign
publishers had taken the initiative in producing translations for their
home markets.
Beyond coping with difficult
idiomatic expressions, some translators have encountered insurmountable
cultural problems. Hergé was particularly amused by the Japanese
difficulty with Dupont and Dupond (Thomson and Thompson). The Tokyo
publisher indicated that such a pair of blunderers in positions of public
responsibility would have committed hari kari long ago. The
translation process involves supplying foreign publishers with color
plates in which the text balloons and captions have been left blank.
Compressed fonts or excessive white space in the balloons are often of
sign of idiomatic difficulties encountered by the translators. Lettering
that is an integral part of the illustrations, such as street signs, are
whited out and overlaid with translations if necessary.
In 1958, Methuen Childrens's
Books Ltd. of London undertook to publish an English edition, thanks in
large part to the enthusiasm of Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner,
who volunteered to do the translations. Their labor of love, although much
praised by Hergé, has been overlooked by the critics. They initially
selected titles for translation in an order that would introduce the
principal characters in a logical sequence, and they saved those that
presented difficulties until last.
Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner
enjoyed a unique working relationship with Hergé, consulting freely with
him about the interpretation of difficult passages, and exerting an
unusual influence on the revision of the French editions. At their
suggestion, Hergé completely re-illustrated The Black Island since
the original English and Scottish settings would not be altogether
convincing to a British audience. Hergé sent a colleague across the
Channel to do location sketches, and in the process updated the setting
from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. He also took the opportunity to
correct some errors, such as disarming the British police. Inflation also
took a toll: the counterfeiters whom Tintin brought to justice were now
printing £5 instead of £1 notes.
The Land of Black
Gold also presented problems. The translators felt that children would
not understand the original allusions to the Irgun in nascent Israel at
the end of the British Palestine Mandate. (Hergé started the book in 1939,
was interrupted by the war, and completed it in 1948-50.) In the original
version, Tintin was arrested by the British authorities in Haifa, and
subsequently kidnapped by Jews and then by Arabs. Hergé reillustrated and
rewrote part of the book, eliminating all references to the British and
Jews, and setting the story instead in his imaginary emirate of the
Khemed. The result was a simplified plot with which he was even more
pleased. The delay in publishing this volume forced British readers to
wait ten years for an explanation to the Thompsons' strange growth of
multicolored hair during the lunar adventure, which stemmed from a mishap
in the Arabian desert.
From the start,
Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner agreed that literal translations were not the
best approach. They sought instead to produce an English version with
literary merit in its own right. They had a completely free hand, but in
seeking to convey the original intent of Hergé's jokes and Belgian-French
puns, they repeatedly turned to the author for assistance. In some
instances they even surpassed Hergé, as with the Gaelic dialect in The
Black Island. In others, they have easily equalled the author's wit,
as in the rendering of the South American "Arumbaya" tribal tongue in
The Broken Ear and The Picaros.
The translators also
anglicized the home setting of Tintin's adventures in order to make the
stories more palatable to a "rather chauvinistic audience." Thus Captain
Haddock's Chateau de Moulinsart became Marlinspike Hall, but no readers
have complained of such anomalies as Belgian police patrolling the
"English" countryside.
Tintin in America,
which first appeared in 1931, was not published by Methuen until 1978,
after Hergé had partly altered the objectionable representation of Blacks.
Despite the obvious period setting, a leading Canadian bookseller refused
to stock the book, and the American publisher waited for a year before
marketing the controversial volume. Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner saved Le
Lotus Bleu for last since they felt that presenting the context of the
Sino-Japanese War to today's children would be a major hurdle. When it
finally appeared in 1983, they included an unprecedented historical
disclaimer to establish the complex setting. Although these last
problematic books had been translated into other languages without
stirring up significant adverse criticism, Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner felt
that English-speaking world -- with its racism and sexism watchdog
committees -- was more chauvinistic, and would require considerable
cultivating before it could accept and understand Hergé's earliest works.
By the late 1970s it was
clear that Hergé no longer had the energy or interest to extensively
rewrite and re-illustrate his books, so the translators shelved any intent
to work on Tintin au Congo with its embarrassingly paternalistic
colonialism (written in 1930) for fear of "producing a furor among our
liberal friends." (The book was nevertheless a great hit in Zaire, the
former Belgian Congo.) They likewise refused to touch the crude
anti-communist polemic of Tintin au Pays des Soviets, which even
Hergé had refused to re-issue in color (as he did after 1943 with all his
other pre-war books). In 1973 Hergé gave in to popular pressure, and
reissued an archival edition of the original Soviets volume. Demand
for all manifestations of his work continued to escalate even after his
death in 1983, and the translators also gave in to the pressure. Casterman
published their translation of the archival black and white version of the
Congo in 1982, and the Soviets appeared in English in 1989.
Hergé died leaving a twenty-fourth book unfinished and strict instructions
that Tintin was to die with him rather than be continued by others. After
some controversy and squabbling, his executors published Tintin et
l'Alph-Art in its rough, unfinished form in 1986. This too finally
appeared in English in 1990. Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner had completed a
thirty-year labor of love in translating Hergé's works.
Shortly after Tintin's first
appearance in Britain in 1958, Golden Press of New York began publication
of an American edition. Deciding that U.S. readers required an American
idiom, they hired Danielle Gorlin to translate five books and Nicole
Duplaix a sixth (King Ottokar's Sceptre). After a poor reception by
an unresponsive public, Golden Press abandoned the venture. Pierre Servais
of Casterman felt that the American publisher simply gave up too soon,
since it took the British edition five years to become a staple part of
the children's book market there. The Gorlin-Duplaix versions, although
noticeably inferior to the British editions, are now rare collectors'
pieces.
Tintin's initial appearance
in English coincided with a wave of hostility from educators and
librarians against the comic strip form. The campaign was originally
directed at American horror comics but soon embraced even upstanding
characters like Little Orphan Annie. In England, where comics were
viewed with contempt, Tintin received an unexpected boost from the august
Times Literary Supplement, which devoted a front page article to a
scholarly and praiseworthy analysis of the Tintin phenomenon. "Here's a
good comic," was Newseek's announcement to the U.S. in 1960, but
Albert Leventhal, president of Golden Press, was quoted as saying that the
United States was as far behind in the Tintin race as it was in the
missile race. No more Tintin books appeared under his imprint after that
pessimistic statement.
In 1974, Peter Davidson,
director of Atlantic Monthly Press, initiated a new American edition.
Relying on his own children to decide which titles would initially put
Tintin's best foot forward, Davidson issued four titles that year under
the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint, using the Lonsdale-Cooper/Turner
translations without alteration. By 1979 Little, Brown had issued all the
then available English translations and they had secured a solid foothold
in the American market.
Chronological Bibliography(presented in the order of the French
canon)
|
Original French 1
|
English Editions 2
|
Methuen Ltd. 3
|
Golden Press 4
|
Little, Brown Co.5
|
Sundancer 3
|
Tintin ... in the Land of the
Soviets Tintin au Pays des Soviets |
(1929) 1929
|
|
|
|
1989 |
Tintin ... in the Congo Tintin au
Congo |
(1930) 1946 |
|
|
|
1991 |
Tintin in America Tintin en Amerique
|
(1931) 1946 |
1978 |
|
1979 |
|
Cigars of the Pharaoh Les Cigares du
Pharaon |
(1932) 1955 |
1971 |
|
1975 |
|
The Blue Lotus Le Lotus Bleu |
(1934) 1946 |
1983 |
|
1984 |
|
Tintin and the Broken Ear L'Oreille
Cassée |
(1935) 1943 |
1975 |
|
1978 |
|
The Black Island L'Ile Noire |
(1937) 1966 |
1966 |
|
1975 |
|
King Ottokar's Sceptre Le Sceptre
d'Ottokar |
(1938) 1947 |
1958 |
1959 |
1974 |
|
The Crab with the Golden Claws Le Crabe
aux Pinces d'Or |
(1940) 1943 |
1958 |
1959 |
1974 |
|
The Shooting Star L'Étoile
Mystèrieuse |
(1941) 1941 |
1961 |
|
1978 |
|
The Secret of the Unicorn Le Secret de
la Licorne |
(1942) 1942 |
1959 |
1959 |
1974 |
|
Red Rackham's Treasure Le Trésor de
Rackham le Rouge |
(1943) 1943 |
1959 |
1959 |
1974 |
|
The Seven Crystal Balls Les Sept Boules
de Cristal |
(1943) 1943 |
1963 |
|
1975 |
|
Prisoners of the Sun Le Temple du
Soleil |
(1944) 1944 |
1963 |
|
1975 |
|
Land of Black Gold Tintin au Pays de
l'Or Noir |
(1939) 1971 |
1972 |
|
1975 |
|
Destination Moon Objectif Lune |
(1950) 1950 |
1959 |
1960 |
1976 |
|
Explorers on the Moon On a Marché sur
la Lune |
(1952) 1952 |
1959 |
1960 |
1976 |
|
The Calculus Affair L'Affaire
Tournesol |
(1954) 1954 |
1960 |
|
1976 |
|
The Red Sea Sharks Coke en Stock
|
(1956) 1967 |
1960 |
|
1976 |
|
Tintin in Tibet Tintin au Tibet |
(1958) 1958 |
1962 |
|
1975 |
|
The Castafiore Emerald Les Bijoux de la
Castafiore |
(1961) 1961 |
1963 |
|
1975 |
|
Flight 714 Vol 714 pour Sydney |
(1966) 1966 |
1968 |
|
1975 |
|
Tintin and the Picaros Tintin et les
Picaros |
(1975) 1975 |
1976 |
|
1978 |
|
Tintin and Alph-Art Tintin et
l'Alph-Art |
1986 |
|
|
|
1990 |
Books derived from Films |
Tintin and the Golden Fleece Tintin et
la Toison d'Or (film 1960) |
1962 |
1965 |
|
|
|
Tintin and the Blue Oranges Tintin et
les Oranges Bleues (film 1964) |
1965 |
1967 |
|
|
|
Tintin and the Lake of Sharks Tintin et
le Lac aux Requins (animated film 1972) |
1973 |
1973 |
|
1989 |
|
Footnotes:
1. The dates of the French editions
are that of first serialization, followed by that of the edition currently
in print. The latter dates, except for Tintin in the Congo, are the
copyright date of the artwork for the English language editions.
2. In addition to the above table,
Casterman (Paris/Tournai) published English editions (translators unknown)
of The Secret of the Unicorn (1952), Red Rackham's Treasure
(1952), and Tintin in the Congo (trans. by Lonsdale-Cooper/Turner,
1982).
3. All Methuen Children's Books
(London) and Sundancer (London) translations are by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper
and Michael Turner. Magnet is a paperback imprint of Methuen. Sundancer
editions are the original black and white illustrations.
4. All Golden Press (New York)
translations are by Danielle Gorlin, except King Ottokar's Sceptre
by Nicole Duplaix.
5. The Little, Brown Co. (Boston)
editions were originally published in association with Atlantic Monthly
Press, and later under the Joy Street Books imprint. Translations are the
same as the Methuen editions.
This page is reproduced here with the kind permission of Todd Mills.
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