ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at two late eighteenth-century German editions of Algernon Sidney’s Discourses concerning government (1698) and their reception by contemporary reviewers. The 1793 Leipzig edition by Christian Daniel Erhard contained a close literal translation of the Discourses, providing the full-length text with extensive annotations and commentary. The 1795 Halle edition by Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob, in contrast, offered a radically shortened version of the Leipzig text with further significant editorial interventions. Both the full and the shortened versions of the text toned down the radical voice of the seventeenth-century English republican, focusing on Sidney’s support for moderate constitutional government rather than his defence of resistance to tyrants. Thus, they could be used to defend the status quo in Germany against the radical constitutional change in neighbouring France at the height of the Revolution. While both editions received much praise in contemporary review journals, it was generally felt that Jakob’s abbreviated and rewritten text served its purpose better than Erhard’s full translation, not least because of its improved readability. An analysis of the reviews will tease out what contemporaries might have looked for in a translation and how reviewers might have helped to shape a text’s reception.
