Hello and welcome to Translating Jane Austen! This is an ongoing research project run by Asha Parekh (3rd year English literature, University of Southampton), and supervised by Professor Gillian Dow.
In the 250th birthday year of Jane Austen, I reflect on what makes such a quintessentially ‘English’ author a global celebrity.
Did you know that Austen has been translated into over 40 languages worldwide? That one French translator conducted his translation from prison, where he was held after blowing up a restaurant? Or that a 1956 Dutch translator of Northanger Abbey decided to rename the text Heroine out of Control (Heldin op hol)?
The translation history of Austen’s works is fascinating… and scattered. No complete data exists on translations, and new editions are being discovered still that dropped out of print, and memory, a long time ago. This project aims to change that – to synthesise existing lists in books, library catalogues, and sites like the UNESCO Index Translationum, and make them searchable for the first time. See the ‘About’ page for more details, and ‘Bibliography’ for the projects and works that have inspired us.
Stay tuned for more…
Leave a Reply