mail@mhra.org.ukMHRA European Translations
Aimed at an academic market, titles in this series will reflect current areas of scholarly debate and/or topics studied on undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Selections from different works by single authors, and anthologised selections from diverse translated authors, may be included. Proposals should normally relate to translations first published pre-1900. Titles already accepted include, for example, Luise Gottsched’s Der Lockenraub (The Rape of the Lock).
Each volume will include a substantial introduction, and textual and explanatory notes which will not however attempt to be exhaustive (notes should normally occupy no more than 10% of the total word-count). The introduction will describe the ways in which this particular translation (or these translations) shaped literary and/or intellectual currents in the receiving culture, and will provide a coherently argued account of the omissions and distortions of the translation/s. In the case of drama, adaptations as well as translations will be considered.
Where feasible, the work will take the form of parallel texts (using the text from which the translator worked). Spelling will not be modernised, but, to facilitate searchability, a glossary including older or inconsistent spellings will, if relevant, be part of the end-matter. As well as a glossary, editions will provide a bibliography and index.
Copyright issues will vary somewhat according to the language/s concerned. It will be the responsibility of the proposer to make a clear statement about copyright status on submission of the proposal.
Titles will be selected by members of the distinguished Editorial Board and edited by leading academics. Volumes will appear both online and as print-on-demand publications. There is no requirement for a subvention by authors.
Proposals are invited from prospective authors who should submit a completed Book Proposal Form and send it to europeantranslations@mhra.org.uk
General Editor
Prof. Alison Finch, Univ. of Cambridge
Editorial Board
French: Prof. Alison Finch, Univ. of Cambridge;
Prof. Malcolm Cook, Univ. of Exeter
Germanic: Prof.
Ritchie Robertson, Univ. of Oxford
Italian: Dr Mark Davie, Univ. of Exeter
Portuguese: Prof.
David Treece, King's College London
Slavonic: Prof. David Gillespie, Univ. of Bath
Spanish: Prof. Derek Flitter, Univ. of Exeter; Dr Jonathan Thacker, Univ. of Oxford
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Vol. 1. Böece de Confort remanié. Edition critique. ISBN 978-0-947623-97-5. Summer 2010. This anonymous fifteenth-century French verse-prose translation of Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae is found in a single manuscript: Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, 5038D. The text consists of a revised version of the meters from the anonymous verse translation Böece de Confort (edited by Marcel Noest and published in Carmina Philosophiae. Journal of the International Boethius Society, 8-9 (1999-2000), v-xviii, 1-331), 11 (2002), 9-15), and a new translation of the prose sections. It belongs to a network of related translations: Boeces: De Consolacion (c. 1320), Le Roman de Fortune et de Felicité de Renaut de Louhans (1339), Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion (c. 1350-1360), and the Böece de Confort (c. 1380), which have now all been edited, and is the second-to-last of the twelve distinct medieval French translations of the Consolatio Philosophiae. It is an individual attempt through réécriture to master Boethius’ thought. Critical material in French (Introduction, Notes, Glossary, Index of Proper Names) accompanies the edition of the text.
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Vol. 2. Luise Gottsched's Der Lockenraub. ISBN 978-0-947623-84-5. Spring 2012. Luise Gottsched was one of the most prominent translators in eighteenth-century Germany, bringing her countrymen into contact with the work of many key writers, thinkers and scientists in the European republic of letters. Der Lockenraub (1744) was the first German verse translation of Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock (1714), and an impressive achievement at a time when English was still an exotic language in Germany and England largely a terra incognita. The introduction will outline the circumstances which gave rise to this important text and discuss its influence on the development of mock-epic poetry in Germany. The volume will thus underline the crucial role played by translation in shaping German culture during the Enlightenment.
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Vol. 3. Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La devoción de la cruz / August Wilhelm Schlegel, Die Andacht zum Kreuze. ISBN 978-0-947623-99-9. Spring 2012. This edition will provide a detailed comparison of the work by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La devoción de la cruz (ca. 1633), and the first German translation by August Wilhelm Schlegel (Die Andacht zum Kreuze, 1803)
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Vol. 4. C. M. Wieland’s Ein St. Johannes Nachts-Traum (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). ISBN 978-1-907322-00-6. Summer 2012. The book is a critical edition of the first play in Wieland’s influential volumes of German Shakespeare translations, and is provided with appropriate critical apparatus. The 12,000-word introduction will discuss the importance of Shakespeare’s plays in eighteenth-century German culture and examine Wieland’s translation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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Book Proposal Form