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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: McAteer, Cathy Title: A Study of Penguin’s Russian Classics (1950-1964) with Special Reference to David Magarshack General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. A Study of Penguin’s Russian Classics (1950-1964) with Special Reference to David Magarshack Catherine Louise McAteer A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of PhD in the Faculty of Arts, School of Modern Languages, October 2017. Word Count: 79,956 Abstract This thesis analyses the figures and events behind Penguin’s twentieth-century re- launch of the nineteenth-century Russian literary canon. It explores the combination of factors behind Penguin’s makeover of Russian literature, arriving fifty years after the first translations that can be considered ‘commercial’ by Constance Garnett. In this project, primary research is viewed through the lens of sociological concepts as a means of interrogating the dynamics and relations behind the Penguin Russian Classic titles. My analysis of Penguin’s agents – the founder Allen Lane, the Penguin Classics editorial team, and the earliest Russian-English literary translators – and their agency relies on archive-based research, which has enabled me to construct evidence-based case studies of the key figures and their practice. I have made a particular case study of the prominent Penguin translator David Magarshack, one of the longest serving translators of the early corps, analysing his notes on the literary translation process and the correspondence he exchanged with Penguin. In a departure from traditional sociological approaches, I have juxtaposed the study of Magarshack’s personal background, career and Penguin relations with a text-based study of his translation work, with comparisons to other translators as appropriate, as a way of identifying and understanding the finer details of his practice which, otherwise, would not be revealed. I argue that it is thanks to the collaboration of Penguin’s agents that Penguin’s Russian Classics represent a significant stage in Russian literature in modern Anglophone translation. By combining publishing innovation with translations written in good, modern English and aspiring to Rieu’s ‘principle of equivalent effect’, Penguin brought classic Russian literature into the twentieth-century to suit a self-improving, inquisitive, post-war British reader. This thesis examines for the first time how Penguin and its publishing and translation practices catered to this target readership and thereby generated a new appreciation for classic Russian literature. Dedication and Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Offord Scholarship for funding my research project. Without the generosity of my benefactor, I would not have been able to contemplate dedicating four years of full-time study to this research. I would also like to thank my supervisors for their guidance and encouragement, and my husband, sons, and my parents for their unstinting support. During the course of my research, I have received particular assistance from the following people, whom I would like specially to acknowledge: Penguin Books for their permission to use the Penguin archive; the Magarshack family, for their interest and memories, as well as their permission to reproduce family photos and extracts from archived papers; Richard Davies at the Leeds Russian Archive, for his help with navigating my way through the Magarshack collection; Hannah Lowery and Michael Richardson at the Penguin Archive at the University of Bristol, for their patience and expertise in how best to negotiate the vastness of the archive. Author’s declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University's Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate's own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 14 Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 16 Penguin Archive ...................................................................................................................... 20 Magarshack Archive ............................................................................................................... 24 Chapter Summaries ................................................................................................................ 26 Chapter One: Positioning Penguin Books in the Sociological Turn......................................... 29 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 29 Bourdieu and the Field of Cultural Production ................................................................. 31 A ‘Feel for the Game’ at Penguin ................................................................................ 32 Penguin from the Top Down: Patronage and Subservience ................................. 33 Power Dynamics at Penguin ....................................................................................... 36 The Sociological Turn in Translation Studies ................................................................... 37 Allen Lane: An ‘Ideal’ Publisher? ......................................................................................... 39 Penguin Books: Reinventing the Paperback ..................................................................... 44 The Importance of Design ..................................................................................................... 47 Lane’s Editors and Readers ................................................................................................... 50 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 54 Chapter Two: Power Dynamics in the Translation of Russian Literature before Penguin 56 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 56 The Transnational Circulation of Texts .............................................................................. 56 The Pre-Penguin Climate of Anglo-Russian Relations ..................................................... 59 Bowring and Bentham: A Translator-Patron Partnership ................................... 64 Turgenev and Lach-Szyrma: Russian Literature in a Time of War ..................... 66 Social Agents at the Turn of the Twentieth Century ........................................................ 71 E.A. Cazalet and the Anglo-Russian Literary Society ............................................. 71 Publishers of Change .............................................................................................................. 74 Henry Vizetelly: Penguin Predecessor, Victim of Norms ...................................... 75 Heinemann’s International Library: A Precursor to Penguin Classics .............. 78 Heinemann and Garnett: An Early Model of Publisher-Translator Relations .. 81 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 86 Chapter Three: Publisher-Translator Relations within Penguin’s Russian Classics ........... 89 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 89 Rieu and the Penguin Classics Mission ............................................................................... 90 A.S.B. Glover: Unconventional and Undervalued .............................................................. 98 Penguin Classics after Rieu ................................................................................................