• John Steinbeck in Translation:Sources of Bibliographic Information About Foreign Editions
Figure 1. The Grapes of Wrath, Estonian, 1964.
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Figure 1.

The Grapes of Wrath, Estonian, 1964.

[End Page 22]

Very few american authors have found as many of their works translated into as many foreign languages as John Steinbeck. The Goldstone and Payne bibliography (John Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Adrian H. Goldstone Collection, published in 1974 and known as "G&P" among collectors) lists 57 foreign languages into which at least one of Steinbeck's works has been translated; 11 are from India.1 In many cases there are multiple translations of one of the works into a given language.

According to G&P, the most popular Steinbeck works for translation through the early 1970s were The Pearl (51 separate translations, into 40 languages), The Red Pony (48 translations, 33 languages), Of Mice and Men (55 translations, 32 languages), The Winter of Our Discontent (33 translations, 29 languages), and The Grapes of Wrath (40 translations, 26 languages). Even Cup of Gold had by then been translated into at least 13 languages. The earliest recorded translations were Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish versions of Tortilla Flat, published in 1938. Donald Coers notes the special relationship Steinbeck enjoyed with Scandinavians; the Danes even extended special privileges to him after World War ii by treating him as a member of the Danish underground during the Nazi occupation ("Steinbeck in Scandanavia" 169). Although many of the foreign editions were published before Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, that [End Page 23] recognition does appear to have inspired translations into a number of additional languages.

There have been many translations since G&P's survey thirty years ago, including some languages not represented in that survey. A notable example is The Complete Works of John Steinbeck, a twenty-volume set of new Japanese translations published during the period 1996-2001.

Steinbeck's international popularity reflects the universal appeal of his messages as well as a common understanding of and empathy for them. I was raised in Minnesota where I had no personal experience with migrant workers, but I could easily feel the pain of the people whose journeys are recorded in Of Mice and Men, In Dubious Battle, and The Grapes of Wrath. For an interesting examination of the broad popular and scholarly interest in Steinbeck, see Tetsumaro Hayashi's "Why Is Steinbeck's Literature Widely Read?—What Is the Essence of His Literature?"

A friend of mine has described Steinbeck's writing as "painting word pictures," a tremendous advantage in appealing to an international audience in broadly diverse environments. As a means of communicating his thoughts, Steinbeck frequently used biblical themes and references that would be recognized quickly and meaningfully, perhaps even emotionally, by his Christian and Jewish readers. And yet the works seem well-received in many countries where those religions have little presence.

In a recent essay on Steinbeck's "internationalism," John Ditsky observed:

A reading of selected passages from Steinbeck's writings leads one to the conclusion that the artist performs the function of broad understanding by treating [national] borders as though they did not exist. It is this trampling of borders with impunity that is the hallmark of John Steinbeck's internationalism: the refusal to see national differences as constituting obstacles to a world view of humanity.

(172)

That quality, too, may contribute to the foreigner's appreciation.

Steinbeck's broad international recognition makes a strong statement for the success of his efforts. To overlook the foreign editions of his work would be to miss an important part of the Steinbeck canon. That must be true for the Steinbeck [End Page 24] scholar, and it should also be true for the serious Steinbeck collector. Nothing, however, is a greater or more perplexing challenge to the collector than trying to locate and identify those foreign editions.

I am a serious—some would say a compulsive—Steinbeck collector. (Years ago I missed a return flight to New York from a business trip to Phoenix because I was buried too deeply in the stacks of a used bookstore.) I have an intense interest in locating and identifying those foreign editions. Our collection now includes Steinbeck books in 30 foreign languages, seven more than were actually represented in the Adrian Goldstone Collection. I've learned a great deal in the course of assembling that material—far more about what I don't know than about what I do. I'm often asked why we collect Steinbeck items we cannot even read. Perhaps this essay will give some insight to that curious enthusiasm. Besides, the pictorial covers of many of the foreign editions are often ample reward for the effort.

Let me explain a little about the challenges.

Identification

The collector of translated material attempts to determine:

  • • the title of the Steinbeck work,

  • • the language to which it is translated,

  • • the name of the work in that language (in Roman letters),

  • • the publisher, site of publication, and year of publication,

  • • the name of the translator, and

  • • whether the publication is the first appearance of that translation.

By definition, translations are in a foreign language which, for the most part, means we can't read much, if any, of the printed material. However, most of the information sought is generally found in decipherable form on the title or copyright pages, or colophon, of books in languages using the Roman alphabet. A rough conversion of Cyrillic (Russian) or Hebrew into Roman can be made using an alphabet table (found at "alphabet" in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary)but this is time-consuming work. Transliteration (conversion of characters into [End Page 25] their Roman phonetic equivalents) of information in other non-Roman languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi (Persian), Burmese and the like is even more difficult. Although the Library of Congress's romanization tables help (Barry), you probably need assistance from someone conversant in that language. Make friends at a Steinbeck International Festival, or find a professional translator at a nearby university or on the Internet. Try the Google search engine with "translation" and the name of the language for a start.

Translating literature is an art. As Elaine Steinbeck noted, with amusement, the title of The Grapes of Wrath was once translated by a Japanese bookstore owner as "The Angry Raisins." If the foreign reader isn't familiar with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," the literal translation is meaningless. The Italian translation "Furore," meaning fury, isn't literal but it is far closer to the intended meaning of Steinbeck's title. Every subtlety of American culture or language poses translational trouble. In his Steinbeck biography, Jackson Benson records the difficulties the Steinbecks themselves encountered in finding someone capable of making acceptable French translations of his articles for Le Figaro Littéraire (752-53). Helmut Liedloff introduces his fascinating study of translations of Steinbeck into German with the comment that:

[A]ll translating simply seems to be an attempt to solve an impossible problem. For every translator must always run aground on one of two reefs: he either, at the expense of the taste of his nation, adheres too closely to the original, or, at the expense of the original, adheres too closely to the characteristics of his nation. A compromise between them is not only difficult but simply impossible.

(6)

Liedloff goes on in detail to compare several Steinbeck translations as they struggle "to preserve the sound and rhythmical values without changing the meaning, to preserve the dialectical or slang flavor, to preserve the expressiveness of idiom" (6-7). One thing he makes abundantly clear: the translations are replete with significant differences.

With that in mind, I regard every separate translation as a different book. Our collection includes eight different translations [End Page 26] of The Grapes of Wrath into Turkish, and I've seen reference to others. The novel has been translated into Japanese at least six times. Each is an entirely different book. Of course, later printings of a previously published translation are just new editions or simply reprints.2 A collector who is a completist may want the first printing of each edition, but that approach to foreign copies would be extremely difficult. I prefer the first printing of each translation if I can find it, but for many we have only a copy of a later printing.

Here we meet the next complexity. It is reasonably easy to identify the first printing of editions of Steinbeck works published in the United States, and even those from Canada, Britain, or Australia. But that is not the case with foreign translations. Be skeptical of anyone's claim that a book is a first edition in the particular language. It generally means that person has never seen, or seen reliable dealer or library listings of, an earlier edition or printing. Sometimes the fact of an earlier publication is apparent in a translated copy, but the absence of that information clearly does not mean there was none. The earliest printing I have seen of Un Américain à New-York et à Paris was May 1956, as noted in G&P and clearly stated in the colophon. The beautifully custom-boxed copy I first bought many years ago bears only the date September 1956 in the colophon. Both are now in our collection, but the earlier one inherited the box.

Even G&P fell victim to this problem. Their Item A34b is listed as the "First English language edition: [1959]" of Positano. Actually, the first English language edition was published in Italy in 1954. Goldstone and Payne were unaware of a French language edition of that work, published in Italy in 1955. I mean no criticism of their fine work. This is murky water.

Some foreign editions include a list of other works by Steinbeck in the same language, which can provide helpful information. For example, the list in a Danish edition of Sweet Thursday published in 1954 refers to an earlier publication of Mannen er skjult, a Danish translation of The Moon Is Down. [End Page 27] G&P's earliest listed Danish translation of that title was published at least nine years later, circa 1963. Donald Coers's study of the wartime significance of The Moon Is Down mentions even earlier clandestine Danish translations.

Figure 2. Cup of Gold, Serbo-Croatian, 1971.
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Figure 2.

Cup of Gold, Serbo-Croatian, 1971.

One eBay Internet auction seller of Turkish translations provides a web site for the listings in the National Library of Turkey. He contends, presumably correctly, that the earliest listing of a translation there means it was the "first Turkish edition." Perhaps the Internet offers similar information for other countries.

Condition

Many foreign editions are produced with relatively poor quality paper, often in wrappers rather than boards (as in paperbacks rather than hardbound copies). For old books, that is a prescription for diminished condition which, to a collector, is of prime concern. Some French and Russian editions in boards, however, are of as fine a quality paper and manufacture as I have seen. Indeed, original illustrations often included in such books are one of the chief rewards for collecting them. Beautiful examples are the 1974 Editions Rombaldi French translations of The Long Valley, The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flat and (combined) Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row (each illustrated with original color drawings), the 1948 Arts et Métiers Graphiques edition of Of Mice and Men (an unbound, boxed edition with 37 color lithograph illustrations), and the illustrated 1989 six-volume set of Russian translations. Fine artwork is also found in the 1964 Estonian, 1968 Czech, and 1977 Persian (Iran) translations of The Grapes of Wrath. There are many others.

Condition is always crucial to the book collector. Assurance of acceptable condition is best achieved by visiting the seller and seeing the book. Next best is to rely on the condition description by a reputable and experienced dealer, which is far easier to find in the United States than in most foreign countries. Beware: many foreign copies are appearing in eBay auctions, and the sellers may have no appreciation of the meaning [End Page 28] of such terms as "fine" or "good." Buying sight unseen is risky, particularly from a dealer unknown to you or from an unknown Internet auctioneer.

Nevertheless, I have acquired many translations through eBay auctions and generally have been satisfied. The prices are generally low enough that I can take the risk and, if unhappily surprised, just toss the junk out. That has happened to me only twice in several hundred transactions and only once on a translation. That overseas seller failed to note that the title and copyright pages and two out of every four of the remaining pages in the first signature of the book were blank, a disastrous printing error. Inexcusable, of course, but the book cost very little, and I keep it only because of its delightful pictorial cover.

Sources of Foreign Editions

Until the advent of the Internet, the best way to locate translations was to visit the country and search out local antiquarian dealers, which is still the most enjoyable approach. Foreign editions are found infrequently with dealers in the United States and have tended to be expensive. Extensive dealer catalog listings are unusual, and catalogs devoted exclusively to foreign editions are rare. Those I have come across are mentioned below.

Many of the foreign editions in our collection were purchased long ago from Glenn Horowitz Bookseller in New York City, The Heritage Bookshop in Los Angeles, Walter Reuben, and several other dealers who are no longer in business. In recent years, James H. Johnson of Pacific Rim Galleries in Carmel, California, <prgbooks@mindspring.com> and James M. Dourgarian, Bookman in Walnut Creek, California, <jimbooks@earthlink.net> have been most helpful. Many other good antiquarian dealers will occasionally offer a foreign edition.

As noted above, though, the Internet is now proving to be a significant source of Steinbeck translations. That means searching isn't as much fun, but it has given access to material in such far-reaching places as Estonia, Turkey, Iceland, and Australia. I've never been in any of those countries but my computer has gotten there!

I have obtained many foreign editions from Aslan Behar in Istanbul <rifbeh@bnet.net.tc>, including not only Turkish translations but also some in Farsi (Persian), Arabic, Hebrew, [End Page 29] Czech, Dutch, Portuguese, Korean, Burmese, Albanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and various Scandinavian languages. He has promised me one in Greenlandic. Raigo Kirss in Kuressaare, Estonia, <http://www.stores.ebay.com/haakrik>; <Kirss@tt.ee> has provided Estonian and Scandinavian translations, and Elsa Benjaminsdottir <elsaben@ismennt.is> in Reykjavik has located a number of Icelandic editions. Like most, but not all, foreign sellers, each accepts payment in U.S. dollars by personal check drawn on an American bank. Behar has an account at Wachovia (which happens to be the bank we use) so that a deposit or wire transfer to that account results in instantaneous payment, confirmed to him via the Internet within hours. As the Disney song says, "It's a small, small world."

Bear in mind, most of these foreign dealers are in turn working with dealers or agents in other countries, often with regard to languages they themselves cannot read. That's a lot of filtering of information. I am reluctant to acquire anything without sufficient data to allow me to confirm, from other sources of bibliographical information, just what is being offered. There is no point adding an item to our collection only to discover some day that it is actually a translation of The Sun Also Rises or Uncle Tom's Cabin.

A Thumbnail Sketch of Our Collection

Steinbeck in translation recently has been a particularly active area of our collecting. That material occupies approximately twenty-five linear feet of shelf space, but it is still a relatively minor part of our overall collection. At the heart of the collection, of course, are the first editions. We have all except the limited printing of Un Américain à New-York et à Paris and the original Italian language version of Viva Zapata! Three of our British first editions lack dust jackets. We'll probably fill all those gaps some day.

Early on, one dealer asked what we collect. When I told him, "First editions of Steinbeck books," he responded, "Why are your interests so narrow?" When Margie Cohn first offered us a copy of The First Watch I told her I wasn't interested in keepsakes or pamphlets, just books. She told me I would be sorry, that I would buy one some day and pay a lot more than she was then asking. She was right on both counts. We now seek the first printing of every edition of every Steinbeck book, keepsake, or other publication, including [End Page 30] anthologies with Steinbeck contributions. Our collection includes 47 separate editions of TheGrapes of Wrath in English—the first edition from Viking, the first British and Canadian editions, the Limited Editions Club and Heritage Press versions, both Armed Services Editions, and editions from the Modern Library, Bantam, Penguin, Pan, Sun Dial, Continental Books, Franklin Library and Easton Press, Heron, and more. There is also a salesman's dummy with printing on the title page and pages 3-16 but the balance of the pages blank, and a wrappers copy of a later printing of the Viking first edition. We also try to find the first edition of every Steinbeck biography and every work devoted exclusively or in part to scholarly or critical discussion of Steinbeck's writing. Those works devoted exclusively to Steinbeck now occupy more than nine linear feet of shelf space.

Figure 3. The Grapes of Wrath, Turkish, 1974.
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Figure 3.

The Grapes of Wrath, Turkish, 1974.

A considerable amount of Steinbeck's writing appeared only (or first) in periodicals. Unlike books, copies of magazines and newspapers generally are read and discarded, and locating them in acceptable condition for collecting is a challenge. Our periodicals (including those with material about Steinbeck or his work) are stored in separate archive-quality sleeves in ten large cardboard cartons. There are copies of hundreds of magazines, from Adam to ZYZZYVA (a journal undoubtedly named to be last alphabetically). Try finding a copy of the Nov-Dec 1968 issue of The New Captain George's Whizbang, which has an article about Steinbeck films. The March 1927 issue of The Smokers Companion includes Steinbeck's first commercially published short story, The Gifts of Iban, written under the pseudonym John Stern. There were many publications from The John Steinbeck Society sponsored by the English Department at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana (1968 to 1993), and The John Steinbeck Society of Japan publishes an annual issue.

Materials relating to stage, screen, and tv performances of Steinbeck works include a broad variety of items—scripts, [End Page 31] playbills, lobby cards, posters, photographs, biographical work on actors, directors or set designers, videotapes or dvds, and the like. Recently, we finished an area of our basement to provide additional room for collection material, the periodicals, and more wall space to display many of our movie posters. A large poster for the 1992 Malkovich/Sinise film version of Of Mice and Men hides our circuit breaker box. First-time visitors to our family room and study are welcomed to the "Steinbeck museum of the East." My patient and understanding wife, Karen, has drawn a line across the middle of the family room and vows there will be no more Steinbeck incursions across that line. Good luck!

Figure 4. Sweet Thursday, Dutch, 1971.
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Figure 4.

Sweet Thursday, Dutch, 1971.

Recorded music inspired by Steinbeck writing includes Aaron Copland's scores for the films Of Mice and Men (1940) and The Red Pony (1949), and, of course, his orchestral version "The Red Pony Suite." Rodgers and Hammerstein's Pipe Dream (1955) was based on Sweet Thursday. Mitch Miller's musical Here's Where I Belong (1968), based on East of Eden, ran for just one performance on Broadway. Carlisle Floyd adapted Of Mice and Men into an opera, and Burning Bright was adapted to opera by Frank Lewin. Woody Guthrie's "Tom Joad," Bruce Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad," and Camel's "Dust and Dreams" were all inspired by The Grapes of Wrath. Readings of many of the novels have been recorded, as well as one of Steinbeck himself reading The Snake and Johnny Bear. He appears as the narrator in O. Henry's Full House, a 1952 film based on several O. Henry short stories. Visit us and you can see any of the films and hear almost all the recordings. We haven't yet located recordings of Here's Where I Belong or Of Mice and Men, but we have the sheet music for the musical and the libretto for the opera.

Then there are all those interesting little things called "ephemera." A copy of the 1919 Salinas High School yearbook, El Gabilan, for Steinbeck's senior year. A 1929 Pacific Biological Laboratories Catalog of specimens offered for sale by Doc Ricketts's laboratory. Background material about the migratory labor troubles of the 1930s, or about [End Page 32] Emiliano Zapata, or about the Arthurian legends. Material about "Steinbeck Country" in Central California. Blurbs by Steinbeck on books written by others (Ernie Pyle, Fred Allen, Al Capp, and Gypsy Rose Lee, for instance) and books by other authors (such as Nathaniel Benchley and Edward Albee) that were dedicated to Steinbeck. Photographs and drawings of the author or one of his homes. Posters, schedules, and the like produced for the annual Steinbeck Festival in Salinas. "First day covers" for the 27 February 1979, issuance of the Steinbeck 15¢ postage stamp, and for Sag Harbor's 2002 centennial celebration of the author's birth. The Collected Poems of Amnesia Glasscock by John Steinbeck with a Response by Robert Peters, a book of poems originally incorrectly attributed to Steinbeck but which actually were written by his first wife, Carol, and given to friends before being published in various issues of the Monterey Beacon in 1935. Books written by his sons, John and Thom. Match books from a Mexican restaurant in Burlington, Vermont, named "Tortilla Flat." And there are countless other items.

Years ago I created a computer database to record the collection. The printed version describing the items, in a loose-leaf notebook, is over an inch-and-a-half thick, with printing on both sides of the pages. I'll publish that catalog of the collection some day, if I can ever bring myself to stop searching for new additions. Our database records such interesting information as where we obtained each item, the price we paid and, importantly, where in our home the item is located. Many times have I had something I wanted to lay my hands on escape me for hours on end of thorough searching.

What are we still looking for? We do have a relatively short "want list" of books and periodicals, but generally we are looking for something by or about John Steinbeck that we have never heard of or seen before. And those things keep turning up.

Detailed Bibliographical Information

The following are sources of significant bibliographical information on translations. It is my hope that serious collectors might find a banquet in this information, but Karen warns me that casual readers could find going through it to be like walking through wet concrete. [End Page 33]

Catalogs with Significant References To Foreign Editions (Listed Chronologically)

Todd, William B. John Steinbeck: An Exhibition of American and Foreign Editions. Austin: Humanities Research Center, U of Texas, 1963. Translations are listed following the English editions under the Steinbeck title in the works cited section. Adrian Goldstone loaned some of the foreign editions to the exhibition.

Goldstone, Adrian H., and John R. Payne. John Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Adrian H. Goldstone Collection. Austin: Humanities Research Center, U of Texas, 1974. Listings for 57 languages are grouped by language.

Gross, John, and Lee Richard Hayman. John Steinbeck: A Guide to the Collection of the Salinas Public Library. Salinas: Salinas Pub. Lib., 1979. 181-89. Listings are by language. This collection is now at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas.

Reuben, Walter. American and British Literature: Foreign Editions and Translations. Catalogue 33. Austin: Reuben, 1979. 64-71.

—-. Literature. Catalogue 37. Austin: Reuben, 1980. 96-105.

Morrow, Bradford. John Steinbeck: A Collection of Books & Manuscripts Formed by Harry Valentine of Pacific Grove, California. Catalogue Eight. Santa Barbara: Bradford Morrow Bookseller, 1980. 104-21. Listings are by language.

Riggs, Susan F. A Catalogue of the John Steinbeck Collection at Stanford University. Stanford: Stanford U Lib., 1980. Translations are listed under the Steinbeck title.

Woodward, Robert H. The Steinbeck Research Center at San Jose State University: A Descriptive Catalogue. San José: San José State U, 1985. This catalog is also in San Jose Studies XI.1 (1985). Translations are listed under the Steinbeck title in the works cited section.

Johnson, James H. John Steinbeck: A Collection of Foreign Editions. Carmel, CA: Pacific Rim Galleries, 1996. This catalog of 56 typewritten pages lists translations in 34 languages, including two—Basque and Gurmaki—not represented in G&P, as well as many English language editions published in foreign countries.

Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. John Steinbeck: The Collection of Preston Beyer. Princeton: Princeton U Lib., 1998. Translations are listed under the Steinbeck title in the works cited section. [End Page 34]

Other Sources of Bibliographical Information by Language

Worldwide: Index Translationum. Paris: unesco. The Index is a comprehensive international bibliography of translated works published throughout the world. Each listing includes: author's name, translated title of the work, translator's name, publisher's name, year of publication, number of pages, original language, and original title. The Index originated in 1932, published by the League of Nations. Publication of the annual volumes was suspended in January 1940, with the outbreak of World War II, but was resumed in 1948 by unesco. In 1993, the Index changed from printed form to cd-rom, issued annually with data cumulated since 1979. The currently available version, the 8th Edition, 2001, records 661 translations of Steinbeck material. Although the Index is an extremely useful resource, it does omit some translations. For example, there are no listings of Steinbeck works in Burmese or Vietnamese, although they do exist. And, as with all massive efforts, there are errors. One record of a Steinbeck translation into Serbo-Croatian identifies the English title of the work as "Now and Forever." If you know of a Steinbeck work by that name, please let me know.

Condit, Larry D. "John Steinbeck: A Checklist of English Language Editions and Foreign Translations." Unpublished Master of Arts Degree Research Paper, Dept. of Librarianship, San José State U, 1973. The second part of this checklist, pages 36-104, lists translations into 58 languages, including Thai, which is not found in G&P. But some caution is needed designating languages; Condit lists books under Egyptian that are found in G&P under Arabic. The checklist provides the source for each listing, frequently Index Translationum.

Chinese

Murray, D.M., Chan Wai-heung, and Samuel Huang. "A Checklist of Chinese Translations of American Literature." American Book Collector 22.6 (Mar.-Apr. 1972): 15-20, 28, 33, 37. This lists translations published in Taiwan, the Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, or Singapore, noting the translator, the publisher, and the city and date of publication. [End Page 35] Some listings also include a literal English translation of the Chinese name—e.g., In Dubious Battle as "To Quarrel," To a God Unknown as "The Symbol of the Earth" and The Moon is Down as "When the Moon Goes Down the Birds Cry and the Frost Fills the Sky." The listing is limited to books (no periodicals), and its authors disclaim that it is definitive, especially as to translations published in Communist China. Less than half the Steinbeck listings were verified by the authors' personal examination; the balance are taken from other bibliographical listings.

See also Cao, Zuoya. "The Chinese Translation of The Grapes of Wrath." The Steinbeck Newsletter [now called Steinbeck Studies] 10.2 (1997): 11. The author of this short article is the granddaughter of the translator of the first Chinese translation.

Finnish

Wendel, Thomas. "John Steinbeck: Finland's Favorite American Author." The Steinbeck Newsletter 3.1 (1990): 4-5. This article provides earlier publication dates for a number of translations mentioned in G&P, including that of The Grapes of Wrath 14 years prior to the date of the G&P copy.

French

Rafroidi, Patrick. "Bibliographie." John Steinbeck. Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1962: 122-24. Also Barkan, Pierre. "Bibliographie." Tortilla Flat. n.p. [Paris]: Editions Rombaldi, 1974. 231-38.

German

Liedloff, Helmut. "A List of the German Translations of the Works of John Steinbeck, 1940-1961." Steinbeck in German Translation: A Study of Translational Practices. Southern Illinois University Monographs, Humanities Ser. 1. Carbondale: Southern Illinois U, 1965. 96-100.

Japanese

Hashiguchi, Yasuo. "Japanese Translations of Steinbeck's Works (1939-69)." Steinbeck Quarterly, Ball State U. III.4 (Fall 1970): 93-106.

Nakayama, Kiyoshi. Steinbeck in Japan: A Bibliography. Osaka: Kansai UP, 1992. This bibliography is principally in Japanese but includes significant information in English. See [End Page 36] also Nakayama's "Bibliography of Steinbeck in Japan," which is a regular feature, in English, in Steinbeck Studies, published annually by the John Steinbeck Society of Japan.

Figure 5. The Grapes of Wrath, Italian, 1998.
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Figure 5.

The Grapes of Wrath, Italian, 1998.

Nakachi, Kozen. "Japanese Translations of The Grapes of Wrath." The Steinbeck Newsletter 12.2 (2000): 36-37.

Portuguese

Monteiro, Stephen. "Steinbeck in Translation." Steinbeck Quarterly XVII.3-4 (1984): 103-04. This adds five entries in Portuguese and one in Spanish to those listed in G&P.

Russian

Brown, Glenora W., and Deming B. Brown. A Guide to Soviet Russian Translations of American Literature. NY: Columbia U, 1954. 195-96. This work covers the period 1917 to 1947 and has nine entries on Steinbeck material; G&P lists only one Russian translation published that early.

English

There are, of course, many collectible foreign editions in English, published in Britain, Australia, Canada, and even Sweden and Japan. For an excellent reference work, see Steinbeck Editions: A Bibliographic Checklist compiled by Robert B. Harmon. San José: Bibliographic Research Services, 1992.

Other Sources

The Grapes of Wrath: Harmon, Robert B. The Grapes of Wrath: A Fifty Year Bibliographic Survey. Steinbeck Research Center, San José State U, 1990. 15-32. Harmon lists translations of this work into 27 languages, although virtually all the listings bear the notation "Not seen."

The Moon Is Down: Coers, Donald V. John Steinbeck as Propagandist: The Moon Is Down Goes to War. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1991. Coers discusses publications of this work in [End Page 37] Norway, Denmark, Holland, France, and other European countries, as well as Russia and China, during or shortly after World War II.

The Johnson catalog, pertinent portions of the two Reuben catalogs, and the checklist of Chinese translations can be found in my 2003 compilation Collected Sources of Bibliographical Information Regarding Foreign Translations of Works of John Steinbeck. Copies of that compilation have been provided to libraries housing principal Steinbeck collections: Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Bracken Library, Ball State University; Center for Steinbeck Studies, San José State University; Columbia University Library; Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin; National Steinbeck Center, Salinas; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Princeton University Library; Stanford University Library; and University of Virginia Library. A copy of the Condit Checklist has also been provided to each of these libraries.

No Spanish? Why, I have been asked, is there no reference to Spanish translations particularly in light of Steinbeck's extensive contacts with Mexico? Spanish editions are, of course, well represented in G&P and in the Johnson and other catalogs, as well as in Index Translationum. Spanish editions of The Pearl are common, and there are several of The Log from the Sea of Cortez. But apparently The Forgotten Village has never been translated into Spanish. Curiously, the first publication in book form of the Zapata script was in 1953—in Italian. The first American publication of the full script didn't appear until 1975, twenty-three years after the film was released. The only reference I find to a Spanish edition is in the Index Translationum cd-rom, a 1996 publication from Madrid.

I am unaware of any other separate source of significant bibliographical information on Spanish translations. None of the Spanish editions in our collection has an internal listing of the other titles available in that language. I don't say that such a reference work does not exist, only that I haven't found one...yet. Perhaps that's why our collection is never "finished." [End Page 38]

Kenneth H. Holmes

Kenneth Holmes is a retired lawyer who, with his wife, Karen, lives in Cary, North Carolina. They have been Steinbeck enthusiasts and serious collectors of material by and about John Steinbeck for nearly forty years. Anyone with a question or comment about Steinbeck materials, or collecting them, can contact Ken at khholmes@worldnet.att.net.

Notes

1. G&P is by far the collector's leading source of information about Steinbeck material. Although that bibliography was a catalog of the Adrian Goldstone Collection (now housed at the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin), it includes many items not in the Collection, each of which is identified by an asterisk before its catalogue number. Among those were many of the translations, most of which were recorded from the Index Translationum.

2. The distinction between a new edition and a reprint is beyond the scope of this piece. If you are interested in that, though, you are on your way to understanding the world of the collector.

Works Cited

Barry, Randall K. ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997.
Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. NY: Viking, 1984.
Coers, Donald V. John Steinbeck as Propagandist: The Moon Is Down Goes to War. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1991.
---. "Steinbeck in Scandinavia." John Steinbeck: A Centennial Tribute. Ed. Stephen K. George. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. 165-72.
Ditsky, John. "'The Capacity for Peace-Culmination of All the Others': The Internationalism of John Steinbeck and Narrational Technique." Beyond Boundaries: Rereading John Steinbeck. Ed. Susan Shillinglaw and Kevin Hearle. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2002. 171-85.
Goldstone, Adrian H., John R. Payne. John Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Adrian H. Goldstone Collection. Austin: Humanities Research Center, U of Texas, Austin, 1974.
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---. Xuseha-ye Xasm [The Grapes of Wrath]. Trans. S. Messkub and Abdorrahim Ahmadi. Illustrated. Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1977.

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