ABSTRACT
The phrase ‘new translation’ has become a publisher’s marketing strategy, since fresh versions of old favourites always hold great promise. New translations do not necessarily represent an improvement on earlier ones, however, nor is it always the case that an early translation is no longer read. Edgar Taylor’s translation of Grimms’ tales is still in print today, and retranslation is a more complex phenomenon than a simple updating process. In the long history of the retranslation of texts for children, the impetus for new versions may be educational, literary, commercial, or a combination of the three. Successive early school editions of Aesop’s fables owe their existence to pedagogical advances, whereas in the late nineteenth century new translations of fairy tales or classic children’s stories met the demand for cheap editions on the one hand or for the more expensive, attractively bound gift books on the other. A successful illustrator was often the catalyst for a new translation. In other instances translators dissatisfi ed with existing versions seized the initiative to retranslate and persuaded a publisher that the time was ripe for a new edition of a popular children’s book. Editors, too, have deemed the language and tone of existing versions to be unsuitable for young readers or, in the case of the classics of children’s literature, have in recent decades recognised the growing academic market for scholarly editions.
