Literate Lifetime
"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." -- W. Fusselman
Ormsby, John, 1829-1895We have 45 books for this author.John Ormsby (1829-1895) was a nineteenth-century British translator. He is most famous for his 1885 English translation of Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote de la Mancha, perhaps the most scholarly and accurate English translation of the novel up to that time. It is so precise that Samuel Putnam, who published his own English translation of the novel in 1949, faults Ormsby for duplicating Cervantes' pronouns so closely that the meaning of the sentences sometimes becomes confusing. Ormsby's translation has seen more editions than any other nineteenth-century English version of the novel, having been included in the Heritage Book Club series of great novels, and in the famous Great Books of the Western World set. The contemporaneous translations by Alexander J. Duffield (1881) and Henry Edward Watts (1888) have been virtually forgotten. Ormsby's translation was the first English version of Cervantes' book to appear complete on the Internet. Ormsby not only translates the novel; he provides a long and informative introduction with a brief analysis of all the major English versions of "Don Quixote" up to then, as well as explaining the choices that he himself made in translating the novel. He also features a short biography of Cervantes in his introduction, as well as providing his own controversial analysis of the work. Ormsby refutes the widely accepted view that "Don Quixote" is a sad novel with allegorical meanings and a pessimistic philosophy, and states that because Cervantes himself declared it to be a satire against books of chivalry, it is primarily only that, although it does contain much observation on human character. Ormsby also refutes, in addition, the commonly held view that Don Quixote is an innately noble person, stating that his nobility of character is an attitude that he assumes simply to imitate his knightly heroes. An 1886 edition of the Quarterly Review , published only a year after Ormsby's translation was first issued, took him to task for his limited interpretation of the novel and of Don Quixote's character, while praising the accuracy of the translation. [1] Ormsby also provided his own footnotes for his translation. External links
This biographical information was gathered from the John_Ormsby page, courtesy of the Wikipedia project. BooksDon QuixoteThe History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 01 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 02 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 03 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 04 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 05 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 06 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 07 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 08 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 09 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 10 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 11 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 12 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 13 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 14 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 15 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 16 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 17 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 18 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Complete The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 19 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 20 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 21 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 22 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 23 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 24 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 25 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 26 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 27 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 28 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 29 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 30 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 31 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 32 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 33 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 34 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 35 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 36 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 37 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 38 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 39 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 40 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 41 The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, Part 42 |
Pick of the DayLists of Interest
Other ways of browsing |
