ABSTRACT
This chapter will focus on the role of translation within the transnational communication circuit for periodicals between South America and Great Britain during the 1830s and 1840s. The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented expansion of periodical publishing on a transatlantic scale. One such was the Chilean periodical El Araucano [The Araucanian], to which the Venezuelan-Chilean polymath Andres Bello (1781–1865) contributed a series of short translations. The translations of British reviews of astronomical observations of Halley's Comet in 1835 later became part of Bello's own treatise Cosmografía [Cosmography], published in 1848, whose main source text was his Spanish translation of selected chapters from Herschel's A Treatise on Astronomy (1833) and other foreign scientific works. Drawing on periodical publications research and translation studies, the chapter focuses on integrating the study of the translations into their publication context, examining how the mutable and ephemeral form of the periodical allowed for expanded textual discourse. Finally, it explores the various publishing and translation strategies conducted by the translator to update the British source texts in the periodical for Chilean readers.
