From a Cornish Window / A New Edition - Arthur Quiller-Couch

But, perhaps, by way of preface I shall remind the reader that the final number of Pickwick was issued in November, 1837. The first French version—which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald justly calls 'a rude adaptation rather than a translation'—appeared in 1838, and was entitled Le Club de Pickwickistes, Roman Comique, traduit librement de l'Anglais par Mdme. Eugenie Giboyet. With equal justice Mr. Fitzgerald complains (The History of Pickwick, p. 276) that "the most fantastic tricks are played with the text, most of the dialogue being left out and the whole compressed into two small volumes." Yet, in fact, Mme. Giboyet (as will appear) was more sinned against than sinning. Clearly she undertook to translate the immortal novel in collaboration with a M. Alexandre D—', and was driven by the author's disapproval to suppress M. D—'s share of the work. The dates are sufficient evidence that this was done (as it no doubt had to be done) in haste. I regret that my researches have yielded no further information respecting this M. Alexandre D—'. The threat in the second letter may or may not have been carried out. I am inclined to hope that it was, feeling sure that the result, if ever discovered, will prove in the highest degree entertaining. With this I may leave the letters to speak for themselves.

(1)

"45 Doughty Street,"
"September 25th, 1837."
"MY DEAR MADAM,—It is true that when granting the required permission to translate Pickwick into French, I allowed also the license you claimed for yourself and your collaborateur—of adapting rather than translating, and of presenting my hero under such small disguise as might commend him better to a Gallic audience. But I am bound to say that—to judge only from the first half of your version, which is all that has reached me—you have construed this permission more freely than I desired. In fact, the parent can hardly recognise his own child.
"Against your share in the work, Madame, I have little to urge, though the damages you represent Mrs. Bardell as claiming—300,000 francs, or £12,000 of our money—strikes me as excessive. It is rather (I take as my guide the difference in the handwriting) to your collaborateur that I address, through you, my remonstrances.
"I have no radical objection to his making Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman members of His Majesty King Louis XIII.'s corps of Musketeers, if he is sincerely of opinion that French taste will applaud the departure. I even commend his slight idealisation of Snodgrass (which, by the way, is not the name of an English mountain), and the amorousness of Tupman (Aramis) gains—I candidly admit—from the touch of religiosity which he gives to the character; though I do not, as he surmises, in the course of my story, promote Tupman to a bishopric. The development—preferable as on some points the episcopal garb may be considered to the green velvet jacket with a two-inch tail worn by him at Madame Chasselion's fête champetre— would jar upon our Anglican prejudices. As for Winkle (Porthos), the translation nicely hits off his love of manly exercises, while resting his pretensions on a more solid basis of fact than appears in the original. In the incident of the baldric, however, the imposture underlying Mr. W.'s green shooting-coat is conveyed with sufficient neatness.
"M. D—' has been well advised again in breaking up the character of Sam Weller and making him, like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once. Buckingham (Jingle) and Fenton (a capital rendering of the Fat Boy) both please me; and in expanding the episode of the sausage and the trouser-buttons M. D—' has shown delicacy and judgment by altering the latter into diamond studs.
"Alas! madam, I wish the same could be said for his treatment of my female puppets, which not only shocks but bewilders me. In her earlier appearances Mrs. Bardell (Milady) is a fairly consistent character; and why M. D—' should hazard that consistency by identifying her with the middle-aged lady at the great White Horse, Ipswich, passes my comprehension. I say, madam, that it bewilders me; but for M. D—'s subsequent development of the occurrences at that hostelry I entertain feelings of which mere astonishment is, perhaps, the mildest. I can hardly bring myself to discuss this with a lady; but you will allow me to protest in the very strongest terms that Mr. Pickwick made that unfortunate mistake about the sleeping apartment in the completest innocence, that in ejaculating 'ha-hum' he merely uttered a note of warning, and that 'ha-hum' is not (as M. D—' suspects) an English word from which certain syllables have been discreetly removed; that in thrusting his head through the bed-curtains he was, as I am careful to say, 'not actuated by any definite object'; and that, as a gentleman should, he withdrew at the earliest possible moment. His intercepted duel with Mr. Peter Magnus (De Wardes) rests, as I fondly imagined I had made clear, upon a complete misunderstanding. The whole business of the fleur-de-lys on Mrs. Bardell's shoulder is a sheer interpolation and should be expunged, not only on grounds of morality, but because when you reach the actual trial, 'Bardell v. Pickwick,' you will find this discovery of the defendant's impossible either to ignore or to reconcile with the jury's verdict. Against the intervention of Richelieu (Mr. Nupkins) I have nothing to urge. M. D—' opines that I shall in the end deal out poetical justice to Mrs. Bardell as Milady. He is right. I have, indeed, gone so far as to imprison her; but I own that her execution (as suggested by him) at the hands of the Queer Client, with Pickwick and his friends (or, alternatively, Mrs. Cluppins, Mr. Perker, and Bob Sawyer) as silent spectators, seems to me almost as inconsistent with the spirit of the tale as his other proposal to kidnap Mr. Justice Stareleigh in the boot of Mr. Weller's coach, and substitute for his lordship the Chancery prisoner in an iron mask. I trust, madam, that these few suggestions will, without setting any appreciable constraint on your fancy, enable you to catch something more of the spirit of my poor narrative than I have been able to detect in some of the chapters submitted; and I am, with every assurance of esteem,
Your obliged servant,
Boz."
"P.S.—The difference between Anjou wine and the milk punch about which you inquire does not seem to me to necessitate any serious alteration of the chapter in question. M. D—'s expressed intention of making Master Bardell in later life the executioner of King Charles I. of England must stand over for some future occasion. The present work will hardly yield him the required opportunity for dragging in King Charles' head."

(2)

"MADAME,—Puisque M. Boz se méfie des propositions lui faites sans but quelconque que de concilier les gens d'esprit, j'ai l'honneur de vous annnoncer nettement que je me retire d'une besogne aussi rude que malentendue. Il dit que j'ai conçu son Pickwick tout autrement que lui. Soit! Je l'écrirai, ce Pickwick, selon mon propre goût. Que M. Boz redoute mes Trois Pickwickistes! Agréez, Madame, etc., etc.,
Alexandre (le Grand)."

I am told that literary aspirants in these days do not read books, or read them only for purposes of review-writing. Yet these pages may happen to fall in the way of some literary aspirant faint on a false scent, yet pursuing; and to him, before telling of another discovery, I will address one earnest word of caution. Let him receive it as from an elder brother who wishes him well.

My caution is—Avoid irony as you would the plague.

Years ago I was used to receive this warning (on an average) once a week from my old and dear friend Sir Wemyss Reid; and once a week I would set myself, assailing his good nature, to cajole him into printing some piece of youthful extravagance which he well knew—and I knew—and he knew that I knew—would infuriate a hundred staid readers of The Speaker and oblige him to placate in private a dozen puzzled and indignant correspondents. For those were days before the beards had stiffened on the chins of some of us who assembled to reform politics, art, literature, and the world in general from a somewhat frowsy upstairs coffee-room in C—' Street: days of old—