LâHistoire et la fiction
(1990)
â,
Zola et le naturalisme
(1986)
Michel Serres,
Feux et signaux de brume: Zola
(Paris, 1975)
FILMOGRAPHY
La Grève
[
The Strike
], dir. Ferdinand Zecca (France, 1903)
Au pays noir
[
In the Black Country
], dir. Lucien Nonguet (France, 1905)
Au pays des ténèbres
[
In the Land of Darkness
], dir. Victorin Jasset (France, 1912)
Germinal
, dir. Albert Capellani (France, 1913)
Germinal
, anonymous direction (France, 1920)
Germinal
, dir. Yves Allégret (France, 1963)
Germinal
, dir. Claude Berri (France, 1993)
Note on the Translation
This translation is based on the text of
Germinal
edited by Henri Mitterand and published in vol. iii (1964) of Ãmile Zola,
Les Rougon-Macquart
(5 vols, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960â67) and as a separate volume (Gallimard, Folio, 1978).
Germinal
was first translated into English in a pirated, American edition published by Belford, Clarke & Co. in Chicago in 1885. Given the extensive mistranslations and omissions of this version (by âCarlynneâ), it might be fairer to say that the first English translation was that undertaken by the journalist Albert Vandam, Paris correspondent of the London newspaper the
Globe
. This appeared in instalments in the
Globe
from 30 November 1884 to 26 April 1885 and was afterwards purchased and published in book form in June 1885 by Henry Vizetelly, father of Ernest (who subsequently edited and/or translated many of the Rougon-Macquart novels). But Vandamâs version was bowdlerized. The first complete and unexpurgated translation of
Germinal
into English, privately published in London in 1894 by the Lutetian Society, was by Havelock Ellis (1859â1939), the celebrated authority on sex. Ellisâs translation, prepared in collaboration with his wife Edith Lees (1861â1916), was first published in the Everyman Library in 1933. It was revised and edited by David Baguley for Everyman Paperbacks in 1996.
The present translation replaces that of Leonard Tancock for Penguin Classics, first published in 1954. Since then there have been at least two American translations: by Willard R. Trask for Bantam Books (New York, 1962) and by Stanley and EleanorHochman (New American Library, New York, 1970). The most recent translation is that by Peter Collier in the Oxford Worldâs Classics (1993), which is helpfully annotated by the translator and has an informative and well-judged Introduction by Robert Lethbridge
Germinal
poses none of the problems of
LâAssommoir
where the central characters employ the colloquialisms and slang of the contemporary urban working class. Zola chose not to repeat that experiment (which has been cleverly reconstructed by Margaret Mauldon in her 1995 translation for Oxford Worldâs Classics). When an early reviewer of
Germinal
complained that its characters were unrealistic because they did not speak the local dialect of the Département du Nord, its author replied that if they had, no one would have bothered to read his novel. In translating the language of the miners of Montsou, therefore, I have respected the predominantly polite and literate register of the original French. As to the colloquialisms and âbad languageâ with which their language is nevertheless laced, I have tried to render this in a modern English which will seem neither too squeamish nor like a pastiche of working-class âspeakâ. I have sought to use four-letter (and six-letter) words as sparingly as Zola uses the French equivalents (notably âfoutreâ and âbougreâ) but with an equivalent measure of the shock value (in a literary context) which I suppose these words to have had in 1885. In particular, Zola makes a point of using such terms when his characters are under exceptional pressure, whether drunk, as in Ãtienneâs case on one occasion, or having finally lost patience, as in La Maheudeâs case later in
(1990)
â,
Zola et le naturalisme
(1986)
Michel Serres,
Feux et signaux de brume: Zola
(Paris, 1975)
FILMOGRAPHY
La Grève
[
The Strike
], dir. Ferdinand Zecca (France, 1903)
Au pays noir
[
In the Black Country
], dir. Lucien Nonguet (France, 1905)
Au pays des ténèbres
[
In the Land of Darkness
], dir. Victorin Jasset (France, 1912)
Germinal
, dir. Albert Capellani (France, 1913)
Germinal
, anonymous direction (France, 1920)
Germinal
, dir. Yves Allégret (France, 1963)
Germinal
, dir. Claude Berri (France, 1993)
Note on the Translation
This translation is based on the text of
Germinal
edited by Henri Mitterand and published in vol. iii (1964) of Ãmile Zola,
Les Rougon-Macquart
(5 vols, Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960â67) and as a separate volume (Gallimard, Folio, 1978).
Germinal
was first translated into English in a pirated, American edition published by Belford, Clarke & Co. in Chicago in 1885. Given the extensive mistranslations and omissions of this version (by âCarlynneâ), it might be fairer to say that the first English translation was that undertaken by the journalist Albert Vandam, Paris correspondent of the London newspaper the
Globe
. This appeared in instalments in the
Globe
from 30 November 1884 to 26 April 1885 and was afterwards purchased and published in book form in June 1885 by Henry Vizetelly, father of Ernest (who subsequently edited and/or translated many of the Rougon-Macquart novels). But Vandamâs version was bowdlerized. The first complete and unexpurgated translation of
Germinal
into English, privately published in London in 1894 by the Lutetian Society, was by Havelock Ellis (1859â1939), the celebrated authority on sex. Ellisâs translation, prepared in collaboration with his wife Edith Lees (1861â1916), was first published in the Everyman Library in 1933. It was revised and edited by David Baguley for Everyman Paperbacks in 1996.
The present translation replaces that of Leonard Tancock for Penguin Classics, first published in 1954. Since then there have been at least two American translations: by Willard R. Trask for Bantam Books (New York, 1962) and by Stanley and EleanorHochman (New American Library, New York, 1970). The most recent translation is that by Peter Collier in the Oxford Worldâs Classics (1993), which is helpfully annotated by the translator and has an informative and well-judged Introduction by Robert Lethbridge
Germinal
poses none of the problems of
LâAssommoir
where the central characters employ the colloquialisms and slang of the contemporary urban working class. Zola chose not to repeat that experiment (which has been cleverly reconstructed by Margaret Mauldon in her 1995 translation for Oxford Worldâs Classics). When an early reviewer of
Germinal
complained that its characters were unrealistic because they did not speak the local dialect of the Département du Nord, its author replied that if they had, no one would have bothered to read his novel. In translating the language of the miners of Montsou, therefore, I have respected the predominantly polite and literate register of the original French. As to the colloquialisms and âbad languageâ with which their language is nevertheless laced, I have tried to render this in a modern English which will seem neither too squeamish nor like a pastiche of working-class âspeakâ. I have sought to use four-letter (and six-letter) words as sparingly as Zola uses the French equivalents (notably âfoutreâ and âbougreâ) but with an equivalent measure of the shock value (in a literary context) which I suppose these words to have had in 1885. In particular, Zola makes a point of using such terms when his characters are under exceptional pressure, whether drunk, as in Ãtienneâs case on one occasion, or having finally lost patience, as in La Maheudeâs case later in
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