Invading the American Canon : Translators of Russian Literary Fiction, 1863-1984 / Muireann Maguire.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maguire, Muireann, author.

Series:

Literatures, Cultures, Translation.

Literatures, Cultures, Translation

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wreden, Nicholas--Criticism and interpretation.

Wreden, Nicholas.

Russian literature--Appreciation--United States.

Russian literature.

Russian literature--Translations into English.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (192 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

New York : Bloomsbury Publishing (US), 2025.

Place of Publication:

New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

System Details:

text file HTML

Summary:

Through case studies of émigré literary translators and editors, this open access book traces how Russian literature kindled the American imagination in the 20th century. In the 19th century, American literature was invaded by great Russian novels, including the works of Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gorky, and others, all mediated, translated, and sometimes even discovered by devoted freelance translators like Isabel Hapgood, Leo Wiener, and Nathan Haskell Dole. Throughout the 1900s these translators made Russian literature, from Nobel prizewinners like Solzhenitsyn to obscure émigrés like Mark Aldanov, accessible to American readers. Some literary translators were also publishers, like Nicholas Wreden (1901-55), at different times a bookseller at Scribner’s, an editor at E.P. Dutton and a publishing executive at Little, Brown. His style was so well-regarded that Hemingway wished he wrote in Russian so that Wreden could translate him. He was also a lumberjack, a trainee naval officer and an émigré who fled Russia in 1920 to become a naturalized American citizen. Uniquely, as a translator and as a publisher, Wreden helped determine which Russian novels the American public would read. This book tells Wreden’s story. It also reconstructs, using archival sources, the lives of other extraordinary translator-publishers like Thomas Seltzer, Bernard Guilbert Guerney, and Carl Proffer, who, with his wife Ellendea, ran Ardis Publishers, the firm that brought Soviet writing to the US. Invading the American Canon tells the history of the translation of Russian literature in America and its changing critical reception over a hundred turbulent years. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by a European Research Council Horizon 2020 Starting Grant (grant agreement no. 802437)

Contents:

List of Figures Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Transliteration, Citation, and Referencing Introduction: Russian and American Literature in the Twentieth Century Introduction: Fraternal twins Methodology: Translator studies Introducing Nicholas Wreden ‘Gorki at Coney Island’: A critical overview ‘A Great Treasure’: Russian literature as intellectual and aesthetic capital Conclusion 1. The Taming of the Arts: Publishing Russian Literature in America to 1935 ‘The great Autocracy and the great Republic’ The earliest American translators: Schuyler and his successors Schuyler’s translations: ‘More Or Less Clumsily Englished’ ‘Fragments of a foreign feast’: Translation at the turn of the nineteenth century Hapgood and Dole: ‘Cobbling Extraordinary’ Hapgood and Gorky: ‘rather strong meat’ Aline Delano and Korolenko: ‘comparatively, no sense of humor’ Thomas Seltzer: ‘a tiny Jew, but trustworthy’ Conclusion: Ram them! 2. Unmaking A Russian: The Rise of Nicholas Wreden Unmaking a Russian, Making an American “Go Into The Book Business!” Wreden as book traveler Adventures in the retail trade: Wreden the bookstore manager ‘A big job to do during the next couple of years’: Wreden on committees ‘An invaluable member of this organization’: Wreden as editor Wreden and Russophone cultural networks Conclusion: Greeting ghosts 3. To Live As We Wish: Nicholas Wreden as Translator Introduction: ‘a staggering amount’ Soviet sex crime: The reception of Dog Lane on both sides of the Pacific ‘Gremlins in their Kremlins’: The Fifth Seal scandal Gazdanov and The Specter of Alexander Wolf Conclusion 4. I’ll Never Go Back: Russian-Americans in Translation and Publishing Introduction: A constellation of translators Boris Brasol: ‘a red rag to all Jewish readers’ John Cournos: ‘unaccountable predilections’ A World May End: Irina Skariatina ‘An Unfortunate Case of Versatility’: The adventures of Bernard Guilbert Guerney ‘I Think Every Good American Should Have A Book’: Bookstore owner and publisher “I hope the nail on your big toe dies of small pox”: Guerney’s career as translator and anthologist ‘Kid Pasternak’ and the ‘Zhivago job’ Conclusion 5. For Thee The Best: Ardis, and a Different Kind of Ardor Introduction: On the Soviet literary front The foundation of Ardis Probably the greatest poets of the century: the translation of Mandel’shtam, Brodsky, and Sokolov Carl Proffer: ‘On the whole, with accuracy’ A “complex phenomenon”: Ardis and its achievements Conclusion: Wheelchair basketball Conclusion: Through the Years Two deaths Index

Notes:

Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 cc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

ISBN:

9798765121955

OCLC:

1520506579