Verne Traduced.

From Raymond N. MacKenzie’s LRB review (9 July 2026; archived) of David Coward and William Butcher’s new translation of Jules Verne, Journey to the Moon, some passages about how his publisher and his translators treated him:

By the last decades​ of the 19th century, Jules Verne was less a writer than a brand – one carefully cultivated by his publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel – promising a specific mixture of scientific plausibility, adventure and moral instruction. ‘Jules Verne’ told readers roughly what they would get: a journey, maps, technological marvels, diagrams, rational wonder. A Verne book was, arguably, less the expression of a single imagination and more a tissue of scientific discourse and popular pedagogy, garnished with vivid illustrations. From the mid-1860s, Hetzel did not simply publish Verne; he curated him. […]

Sometime in 1861 or 1862, Verne met Hetzel, who had published a wide range of authors, including Stendhal and Balzac. A lifelong republican, Hetzel had participated in the 1848 revolution and served as Lamartine’s chief of staff during the period of the provisional government; following Louis-Napoléon’s coup in 1851, he fled to Belgium, publishing from there Hugo’s fierce denunciation of the new emperor, Les Châtiments. Later in the decade, as the political climate in France calmed, he returned to Paris and resumed publishing, branching out into family-oriented subjects and opening a bookshop specialising in children’s books. He saw great potential in Verne’s balloon novel: it was the kind of high-quality, educational fiction he wanted for a new magazine he was planning. He suggested revisions and soon offered Verne a contract under which he would commit to deliver multiple volumes a year (most accounts say three, one roughly every four months). Hetzel would buy these volumes outright for a flat fee, rather than offering royalties based on sales.

It’s hard to imagine other writers – the likes of Flaubert, Gautier or even Balzac – agreeing to such terms. One thinks of the white-hot letter Baudelaire sent to Gervais Charpentier when the latter altered some of his phrasing: ‘I told you: delete the whole piece if you don’t like a comma in it, but don’t delete the comma itself; it’s there for a reason … I’ve spent my entire life learning how to construct sentences, and I say – without fear of being laughed at – that what I deliver to a printer is perfectly finished.’ Verne, however, seemed to welcome Hetzel’s revisions. As their relationship developed, Hetzel’s interventions became so great that the books often changed dramatically – characters were altered or expunged, dark events were softened and endings became uplifting. Narrative structures were simplified. Sexual references were deleted, as were any political jibes. […]

Journey to the Moon​ is a worthy addition to Coward’s distinguished body of translations (of Dumas, Maupassant and Simenon, among others). In this edition, he and Butcher preserve the balance between scientific exposition and narrative momentum (though that momentum sometimes slows to a crawl, as in the algebra chapter). They wisely choose not to smooth out the pedagogical passages or turn them into brisker, modern infotainment. Most important, the translation manages to convey Verne’s sense of humour. In his introduction and appendix, Butcher warns us that previous English translations of Verne’s novels – almost all of them before 1970 – are not to be trusted, though many remain in print. Translators in Britain and America routinely deleted large swathes of material – often the scientific material Verne laboured over – and removed any humour that might sound anti-British or anti-American. These early translators, and their publishers, seem to have viewed the texts as a kind of free zone, as if Verne’s originals were really only a suggestion (rather in the spirit of Hetzel, in fact). Characters were added and deleted, renamed, altered beyond recognition. Titles and plots often changed too. Unlike most Verne scholars until quite recently, Butcher has examined the original manuscripts and this research is reflected in his notes. He laments that some of Verne’s finest chapters in the early novels were lost in Hetzel’s ‘paroxysms of destructive editing’. Some scholars now suggest that Verne’s manuscripts, rather than the published books, ought to be the basis for any new translations or editions – as if one might be able to discover and appreciate the real Verne, a pure, pre-Hetzel Verne. It is certainly true that Verne’s literary qualities remain underestimated. He is a fine narrative craftsman, integrating exposition with adventure in a distinctive way. Despite his often dated, even quaint, insistence on scientific accuracy, the novels remain compulsively readable.

Kind of reminds me of the way blues musicians were treated by the guys who issued their music. But Verne seems not to have minded.