BAEN is going to be offering ebook bundles (and presumably individual titles) of a very interesting project documenting the deep roots of Science Fiction.
http://baen.com/RonMillerSpaceCollection.asp
I expect I'll be investing in the full set.
(The first bundle is now up for sale.)
This particular bit has me drooling:
Quote:
Special attention has been paid to Jules Verne in this regard, who is not only one of my favorite authors but has historically suffered from ridiculously poor translations. For instance, the “standard” translation of 20,000 Leagues was created by a British Protestant minister, and Verne was a French Catholic liberal. Anything of which the translator didn’t approve was simply cut out. The result was that nearly 20 percent of the book was eliminated! To make things worse, he had a slippery command of French and no grasp at all of science. The result was literally thousands of errors. . .errors which for nearly a century had been blamed on Verne by his American and English readers. Because this translation has been in the public domain for generations, it’s the one most likely to be reprinted
For my new edition of the book, I replaced the missing text and corrected all of the translation errors and factual mistakes (for instance, having Professor Arronax return from the “Badlands” of Nebraska instead of the original version’s “disagreeable territory”). The book also includes numerous maps, appendices, and a detailed schematic of the Nautilus.
From the Earth to the Moon and Round the Moon have been translated entirely from scratch, with thousands of words of text restored that have never before been seen in any other English edition. Like the other Verne titles, they contain extensive notes and appendices.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is another new translation that also includes maps and some three hundred notes. The new editions of Off on a Comet! and Purchase of the North Pole are based on vintage nineteenth century texts which have been carefully edited for errors and missing text. In addition to the Verne novels I’ve included a brand-new translation of Doctor Omega (1906), by Arnould Galopin. This will be the first time this classic novel about a trip to Mars has appeared in English complete and unabridged. The original illustrations are also included.
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Hopefully the books will live up to the billing.
(Fingers and assorted limbs crossed.)