'A Final Indiscretion': Émile Forgues and His Authorised 1856 Biographical Sketch of Dickens

[...]if we want to give France a taste of the latter's work, we have to set ourselves a particular kind of task, which is beyond the common translator's skill: a subtle exercise, full of nuances, delicate attention, indispensable arrangements, and minutely detailed revision, which speculat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Dickensian 2017-07, Vol.113 (502), p.160-174
Main Author: Hanna, Robert C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biographies
British & Irish literature
Children
Collins, Wilkie (1824-1889)
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
Editors
English literature
Literary criticism
Politics
Translation
Translations
Translators
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Summary:[...]if we want to give France a taste of the latter's work, we have to set ourselves a particular kind of task, which is beyond the common translator's skill: a subtle exercise, full of nuances, delicate attention, indispensable arrangements, and minutely detailed revision, which speculating publishers cannot understand and therefore do not want to pay for. [...]when Davy Copperfield definitively gives up the privileges of the proctorial gown (ecclesiastical attorneys are called proctors and despise their colleagues, the solicitors, as though it were a matter of course), they will see him try to earn a living as a stenographer, translating the debates in Parliament for a morning newspaper, and consequently become 'an atheist in politics'.45 Then they will hear Davy himself recount what happened to him in these terms: 'I have cleared another path for myself. According to Charles Le Goffic in La Grande Encyclopédie Inventaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts, Vol. 17, Forgues ceased practising law in 1837 (Paris: Société de Savants et de Gens de Lettres, [1893], p. 808. [...]there may be a fourth child, named Léon, as a Léon Forgues is identified on one of Wilkie Collins's manuscripts of The Lighthouse as its recipient from Émile Forgues, Collins's translator.
ISSN:0012-2440