
The Icelandic translation of Dracula is actually a different book - fanf2
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/icelandic-translation-dracula-actually-different-book-180963346/?no-ist
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padobson
I'm surprised the differences could have been kept out of mainstream literary
research for so long. I read Dracula in my 11th grade english class. If it's
taught in high school, you'd think there'd have been some sort of academic
trading (foreign exchange, university collaborations, etc) between countries
that noticed the differences. Sounds like they missed out on a chance to
publish.

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drzaiusapelord
Well, it was Iceland circa 1902. It had a ~75,000 person population and was
fairly isolated from the world. This run may have been as little as few
(couple?) hundred books. I could see such a small run being ignored for a long
time. How many of those weren't disposable weekend reads that ended up in the
trash within weeks/months? I imagine once the initial novelty wore off, no one
cared and Iceland's small number of Icelandic readers guaranteed that their
version wasn't going far.

I also imagine some Icelandic people knew they had a different version, but
Iceland, up until recently, was just a backwaters of Denmark. It may have been
an amusing anecdote between Icelandics and the Danish or English who read the
true version. Maybe an inside joke between a couple dozen people? Not enough
to make the international press. Now its just a historic novelty on the
smithsonian mag blog, not exactly the front page of the NY Times.

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atlithorn
Up until recently? In Vampire years you mean?

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drzaiusapelord
> Stoker could, for example, have sent Valdimar an older version of his story

Back in the old days, I could see happening as purely a mistake and
considering how global communication worked then I can certainly see this not
noticed for quite some time. Stoker's publisher could have grabbed the wrong
manuscript and sent it out. Considering the Amazon reviews claim that the
second half of the book is, at best, a rough outline, then I'm guessing this
is probable. It sounds like an unfinished and abandoned work that somehow got
into production.

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olavk
I believe it was actually pretty common in those days for translators to
abridge and adapt much more freely than what would be considered acceptable
today.

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acqq
Especially if the medium was different, like publishing in a newspaper:

"originally published in serial form in an Icelandic newspaper in 1901"

I think now researches would like it to be directly based on some other
version of Stoker's work, as that would give them more value, but I believe
it's more probable that the translator did the adaptations himself. I guess it
was for him just like today nobody expects the film based on the book to be
one-to-one transcription.

Loosely related, in Italy, Mickey Mouse comics were traditionally written and
drawn by Italian authors:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topolino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topolino)

"The first issue of Topolino was published on December 31, 1932: it contained
Mickey's first Italian story drawn by Giove Toppi.[1]"

"Nerbini hadn't correctly secured the publication rights, so when Emmanuel
(Disney's representative in Italy) protested, Nerbini changed the title of the
comic book into Topo Lino (Mouse Lino), replacing Mickey Mouse with Topo Lino,
another mouse. When Nerbini bought the publication rights from Disney and KFS
(King Featured Syndacate), he changed the title back to Topolino."

"In 1952, the comic book became a biweekly, and Italian stories increased.
Italian stories were written mainly by Guido Martina"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_comics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_comics)

"The number of Disney stories produced and published in Italy is far larger
than in the US. Italian stories are regularly translated in other European
languages (e.g., German, French, English, Greek)."

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devindotcom
I have this version:

[https://www.amazon.com/Powers-Darkness-Lost-Version-
Dracula/...](https://www.amazon.com/Powers-Darkness-Lost-Version-
Dracula/dp/1468313363/)

It's a nice book and an interesting story. Anyone who loves Dracula,
translation, or gothic stuff will probably like it.

~~~
SamBam
So that's the translation back from the Icelandic that the article mentioned?

Have you read the original English version as well? If so, which do you think
is better?

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itsjustme2
"Shorter and punchier" makes sense if it was originally intended to be
published in serial form.

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thomascgalvin
And the author was paid by the word.

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Anticapitalist
You get Dickens-esque wordiness from pay-by-word, not short and punchy

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CM30
This sort of 'translation is basically a different product altogether' setup
was still quite common in other media until rather recently. Just look how
many video games were completely overhauled for other markets. Super Mario
Bros 2 is the obvious and often wheeled out example, but stuff like Totally
Rad and Decap Attack were absolutely nothing like the original works they were
based on.

It was pretty common in anime too at one point. See Robotech, which is
infamous for actually being three separate series stuck together into one.

But it's interesting to see an example where the original author was seemingly
involved in modifying the story for local publication.

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runnr_az
It's about the Dracula's monster

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vmarshall23
Was anyone else completely blocked from reading that article because all the
ads wedged the browser?

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failrate
I've started reading everything I can through a proxy that removes everything
except for the text and hyperlinks.

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ChrisGranger
Is this something you've set up yourself, or is there a service you can direct
us toward?

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failrate
I use textise.net

I tried setting up my own, but it was quite a bit harder to manage everyone's
broken SSL than I first assumed.

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thriftwy
_grins_

The Russian translation of Pinocchio is actually a different book!

