I recently downloaded a sample of Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata for my Kindle. I checked to see if was the same version as the Maude translation that I have in hard copy and found that where in the first few lines the Maudes have a woman wearing a ‘mannish coat’, the Kindle version dresses her in a ‘semi-masculine outer garment’. I didn’t look any further and deleted the sample. What this shows is that not all translations are the same and, while it is always possible to have several respectable versions, some literary translation is far below acceptable standards. This is particularly true of older work, which is what Amazon gives away free, but a snag there is that the samples that Kindles download sometimes have such a long introduction that they do not actually manage to start on the substantive text of the book, so you can’t check. There is a Kindle version of the Maude translation of The Kreutzer Sonata in a collected edition of Tolstoy’s works. There is no separate edition, but at the price for which Tolstoy (safely out of copyright) is sold this is hardly a great problem
It is obviously important to check with translated books which version is being made available, but a problem also arises with books that have been abridged for one reason or another. The Kindle edition of The Golden Bough is the 1922 abridgement, which omits his views on matriarchy, sacred prostitution and the crucifixion of Christ.
I have written before about the problems of translating, with reference to Tolstoy, and I have posted a review of my Kindle here..
