Vizetelly & Company as (ex)change agent: Towards the modernization of the British publishing industry
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Denise Merkle
Abstract
This chapter sets out to examine the role of the publishing house Vizetelly & Company, its founder Henry Vizetelly and his son Ernest, as agents of change who contributed to the modernization of the publishing industry in late-Victorian Britain. This case study will show that these agents were loosely affiliated with progressive social movements that were resisting the confines of rigid Victorian class structure and public morality. Vizetelly & Company’s innovations consisted in publishing foreign works in translation, especially realist and naturalist fiction, as well as Anglo-Irish fiction (e.g., George Moore’s novels), in cheap editions destined for a new reading market, the product of the 1870 Elementary Education Act (The Forster Act). By contrast to many periods when it is easier to publish translated works than indigenous ones, it was the opposite in Victorian Britain and being associated with progressive, socially disruptive thought and movements made the task that much more risky. Censorial mechanisms came into play in reaction to Vizetelly & Company’s translation and publishing projects, to which Henry Vizetelly devoted the better part of the 1880s. His career ended on a bitter note: his firm went bankrupt, and he spent three months in prison in 1889 for having published what was labeled by the courts to be “obscene” literature in translation. Yet, he is credited with having contributed to successfully undermining the monopoly of the circulating libraries and introducing to the British publishing marketplace inexpensive editions in a single volume through his translation and publishing activities. The paper concludes that these innovative agents were agents of metamorphosis. Living abroad had changed the worldview of Henry and Ernest Vizetelly. As a result, they operated from within a changed universe that was no longer late Victorian. This case study could prove useful to understanding the dynamics at play in intercultural relations and the role of the translator as intercultural agent.
Abstract
This chapter sets out to examine the role of the publishing house Vizetelly & Company, its founder Henry Vizetelly and his son Ernest, as agents of change who contributed to the modernization of the publishing industry in late-Victorian Britain. This case study will show that these agents were loosely affiliated with progressive social movements that were resisting the confines of rigid Victorian class structure and public morality. Vizetelly & Company’s innovations consisted in publishing foreign works in translation, especially realist and naturalist fiction, as well as Anglo-Irish fiction (e.g., George Moore’s novels), in cheap editions destined for a new reading market, the product of the 1870 Elementary Education Act (The Forster Act). By contrast to many periods when it is easier to publish translated works than indigenous ones, it was the opposite in Victorian Britain and being associated with progressive, socially disruptive thought and movements made the task that much more risky. Censorial mechanisms came into play in reaction to Vizetelly & Company’s translation and publishing projects, to which Henry Vizetelly devoted the better part of the 1880s. His career ended on a bitter note: his firm went bankrupt, and he spent three months in prison in 1889 for having published what was labeled by the courts to be “obscene” literature in translation. Yet, he is credited with having contributed to successfully undermining the monopoly of the circulating libraries and introducing to the British publishing marketplace inexpensive editions in a single volume through his translation and publishing activities. The paper concludes that these innovative agents were agents of metamorphosis. Living abroad had changed the worldview of Henry and Ernest Vizetelly. As a result, they operated from within a changed universe that was no longer late Victorian. This case study could prove useful to understanding the dynamics at play in intercultural relations and the role of the translator as intercultural agent.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction: Agents of translation and Translation Studies 1
- Francisco de Miranda, intercultural forerunner 19
- Translating cultural paradigms: The role of the Revue Britannique for the first Brazilian fiction writers 43
- Translation as representation: Fukuzawa Yukichi's representation of the "Others" 63
- Vizetelly & Company as (ex)change agent: Towards the modernization of the British publishing industry 85
- Translation within the margin: The "Libraries" of Henry Bohn 107
- Translating Europe: The case of Ahmed Midhat as an Ottoman agent of translation 131
- A cultural agent against the forces of culture: Hasan-Âli Yücel 161
- Limits of freedom: Agency, choice and constraints in the work of the translator 189
- Cheikh Anta Diop: Translation at the service of history 209
- The agency of the poets and the impact of their translations: Sur, Poesía Buenos Aires , and Diario de Poesía as aesthetic arenas for twentieth-century Argentine letters 229
- The role of Haroldo and Augusto de Campos in bringing translation to the fore of literary activity in Brazil 257
- The theatre translator as a cultural agent: A case study 279
- Embassy networks: Translating post-war Bosnian poetry into English 301
- Notes on contributors 327
- Index 331
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction: Agents of translation and Translation Studies 1
- Francisco de Miranda, intercultural forerunner 19
- Translating cultural paradigms: The role of the Revue Britannique for the first Brazilian fiction writers 43
- Translation as representation: Fukuzawa Yukichi's representation of the "Others" 63
- Vizetelly & Company as (ex)change agent: Towards the modernization of the British publishing industry 85
- Translation within the margin: The "Libraries" of Henry Bohn 107
- Translating Europe: The case of Ahmed Midhat as an Ottoman agent of translation 131
- A cultural agent against the forces of culture: Hasan-Âli Yücel 161
- Limits of freedom: Agency, choice and constraints in the work of the translator 189
- Cheikh Anta Diop: Translation at the service of history 209
- The agency of the poets and the impact of their translations: Sur, Poesía Buenos Aires , and Diario de Poesía as aesthetic arenas for twentieth-century Argentine letters 229
- The role of Haroldo and Augusto de Campos in bringing translation to the fore of literary activity in Brazil 257
- The theatre translator as a cultural agent: A case study 279
- Embassy networks: Translating post-war Bosnian poetry into English 301
- Notes on contributors 327
- Index 331
