Dear Reader,

On one occasion, out of curiosity, I looked at the translation of one of our greatest novelist classics, Mór Jókai’s most famous novel, The Stonehearted Man’s Sons, published in 1869, in English. I indeed found a translation by Percy Favor Bicknell (b. 1860; year of death unknown). Its title goes like this: The Baron’s Sons: A Romance of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (Boston, LC Page and Co., 1900).

I was puzzled to see that the publisher had dramatically abridged, more precisely, halved the text. (The size of the original novel was reduced from 707,908 characters to 352,082 characters.) Aside from the long cuts, including whole chapters, the translator often abbreviated the text by turning the dialogues into prose. He often merged the original sentences, paragraphs, etc. either close to or far apart from each other into a single unit, kind of digest. In this way, the suggestive or argumentative or dramatic power of the novel has been fundamentally weakened. Abbreviations sometimes have their substantive consequences, and sometimes deprive the reader of valuable literature experiences.

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Móric Jókay of Ásva, also known as Maurus or Mauritius Jokai (February 18, 1825 Komárom, – May 5, 1904 Budapest), was a Hungarian nobleman, novelist and revolutionary. He was active participant and a leading personality in the Hungarian Civic Revolution and War of Independence of 1848-1849 in Pest. His romantic novels were very popular among the elite of the Victorian era in Britain; he was often compared to Dickens in the 19th century British press. One of his most famous admirers was Queen Victoria herself.

The novel is partly based on fairy tales and legends, partly on authentic historical facts. Mór Jókai reports on the events, battles, and scenes of the 1848 revolution, relying partly on historical sources and the credibility of the eyewitness. In fact, the stories about the Hungarian delegation to the Viennese movements, the Viennese students who went over to the Hungarians, or the return of the hussar team and the defeat in Kassa (Košice) are based on reality. In addition, real patterns of the novel’s characters can also be identified.

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Unfortunately, the translater’s Hungarian was not quite good enough to fully understand the text, which was a source of confusing mistakes. To take some lexical mistakes, “the third” meant for him “all the three”; “to mock” – “to scold”. “Sardinia pilchardus” stood for “anchovy” (engraulis encrasicholus); “pitcher of water” for “wash-hand-basin”; “side-dish” for “pastry”; “opera glass” for “lorgnette”; and Alexandra duchess was a “princess”. The stockfish (pesce canella) story was probably not understood by the translator and was therefore omitted.

On other occasions, he simply mistranslated the text. For instance, for “the priest seemed not to want to cease expressing his gratitude” he wrote, “took his leave before the other could question him further”. Miss Edit did not distribute lemonade, but sugar and oranges. It is not her eyes that were alive, but her shape. Otherwise her smile was not “ready”. It was not she who received the “friendly” approach of the guests “relaxed and modestly”, but the guests approached her with relaxed confidence. She smiled at him not falsely but with mocking defiance. And so on.

Because he did not understand the meaning of the words “szívverőér-kövesülés” (“petrification of heart artery” in Eng.), he also did not understand the title of the novel itself, The Stonehearted Man, which suggested on the one hand that the father was suffering from arteriosclerosis, i.e. arteriolith, i.e chalky concretion in an artery, and on the other hand that he was heartless because “his heart was made of stone”. That is why the translation was given a title of somewhat impoverished meaning, The Baron’s Sons.

The translation is artistically undemanding, almost of a colloquial nature. The translator did not seem to respect or perceive either the symbolic messages or the restrained style of the novel but was content with smooth locutions and the cheerful conversational style. For instance, instead of “He arrived on the sleigh with bells” he wrote, “He drove up with a merry jingle of bells”.

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All of the above shortcomings are all the more worrying because there seems to have been a great deal of interest in the novel ever since even in this form. If we look only at our century, it has undergone more and more editions: Amsterdam, Fredonia Books, 2003, 2004; New York, Silver Scroll Publishing, 2004; Carolina, Nabu Press, 2010; Chapel Hill, Project Gutenberg, 2010; London, Perlego, 2010; New York, Symonds Press, 2011; California, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016; London, Forgotten Books 2016; Andesite Press, 2017, Franklin Classics Trade Press, 2018; Glasgow, Good Press 2019; Delhi, Lector House, 2020; Wellseedamm, Alpha Edition, 2021, etc.

I was inspired by three things to undertake this hard task in spite of the fact that my mother tongue is Hungarian. First, I wanted the omission remedied. Second, I love challenges. Third is the fact, that for 120 years, no one in the world has undertaken it. (“The time is out of joint: O cursed spite. That ever I was born to set it right.”) So, given that I can handle Hungarian better than Bicknell, I decided to make a fair, faithful translation of the novel. Since Jókai’s text does not have any features of a specifically poetic nature (neologisms, etc.). I personally felt solid ground beneath my feet.

The question left is how Dear Readers will find my translation.

Post Remark

For now, unfortunately, I was only able to translate the first volume of the novel, for which I apologize to you, Dear Reader. However, you can read the remaining chapters translated by P. F. Bicknell here.