Copyright ofFull Text rests with the original copyright owner and, except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, copying this copyright material is prohibited without the pennission ofthe owner or its exclusive licensee or agent or by way ofa licence 200303691 from Copyright Agency Limited, For infonnation about such licences contact Copyright Agency Limited on (02) 93947600 (ph) or (02) 93947601 (fax) A History of Confusion The Two Earliest English Translations of Oscar Wilde's Salome ]OOSTbAALDER ,- /0, l!\' "'lE I ,\0, TR... NSI.... l'El> i THl: rlH;N,:11 ('1" OSCAk WILl)I',: I I '" Ul<. I __ 7x J Introducing the Issues Salomt is now one ofOscar Wilde's most highly regarded plays - no longer only in continental Europe, but also in English-speaking countries. As is well known, it was originally written in French and published in 1893: Oscar Wilde, Salomi.· Dram' en un Act" Paris: Librairie de I'Art Independant; London: Elkin Mathews &John Lane, 1893. - Stuart Mason, Bibliography of Oscar Wilde, London: Bodley Head & T. Werner Laurie, 1914 (new ed., Lon- don: Bertrarn Rota, 1967), no.348. ' 1. This is an extremely rare book. As most readers will have great difficulty locating a copy, I cite Wtlde's French from Robert Ross's first collected edition of the Work, London: Methuen, 1908, reproduced under the title Tht First Colltcttd Edition oftht Works 0fOJcar Wj/dt, 1908-1922. in 15 vols, London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1969. Salomiis part ofvo1.l3 (though ofvo1.2 in the 1908 version). I use the form Salomt instead of the French Salomi wherever the texts cited allow me to BSANZ Bulletin vo1.26 no.3 & 4, 2002, 131-172 132 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin It is also common knowledge that an unsatisfactory translation of the play into English by Wilde's beloved 'Bosie', Lord Alfred Douglas, appeared in 1894: Salome - A Tragedy in One Act: Translated from the French ofOscar Wilde: Pic- tured by Aubrey Beardsley, London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane; Boston: Copeland and Day, 1894 - Mason The 1894 text does not bear Douglas's name, but does include an acknowledge- ment: 'To my friend Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas the translator of my play'. What until now has not been realised, however, is that this translation has been persistently confused with a later, drastically overhauled version - virtually a new translation - first published in 1906 and almost prepared by Robert Ross, Wilde's life-long friend, and his literary executor after his death in 1900.' This later version has been repeatedly mistaken for Douglas's original transla- tion. Thus many - indeed most - judgements formed about what is held to be Douglas's translation are in fact based on Ross's amended version, which has often been re-printed by later publishers, and presented to an unknowing public, as though it was Douglas's. Vice versa, those who concern themselves with Douglas's version are unaware ofthe existence of Ross's. This confusion has major implications, prompting a number of important questions. How could it be that Ross's amended version has been mistaken for Douglas's? Or, why have people thought that there was only one early transla- tion of Sa/ome when in fact there are two? Just what did Ross do? Which of the two versions is the more authoritative? These and other matters will here be ad- dressed in what, because of the many as yet unresolved intricacies surrounding these matters, is a somewhat provisional report. Since my concern is with the two translated versions in relation to each other and to Wilde's French original, many significant matters concerning Sa- do so, and also when I refer to the play in general terms. In English the second syllable normally receives the stress, in French it is always the last. 2. This, again, is a very rare book. The illustrations in this article are from a copy in the Baillieu Library, University ofMelbourne. 3. Salome: A Tragedy in One At! Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, London: John Lane, Bodley Head; New York.: John Lane Co., 1906. Mason (no.352) points out that this book was reprinted in the form he describes in 1908 and 1911. An upgraded version of the 1906 publication (Mason no.355) had meanwhile appeared, dated 1907 but published in September 1906: Salome:A Tragedy in One Act Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, with Sixteen Drawings by Aubrry Beardsley, London: John Lane, Bodley Head; New York.: John Lane Co., 1907. The text of the play remained unaltered from the 1906 publication, though some significant material was added. Either the 1906 or the 1907 volume provided the basis for all subsequent reprints of Ross's 1906 version, which will from here on be referred to as '1906-7'. Page references are to the 1907 volume. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 133 /ome will reluctantly be omitted from this account.' However, by way of intro- duction to the subject ofour investigation, we must first face two questions: how Wilde came to write his text in French, and how it came about that Douglas did translate it, but with the strange resll1t that his name was not published on the title page, though his role as translator''ras acknowledged in a dedication. As to why Wilde wrote the play in French, I am persuaded by Powell's ar- gument' that Wilde, despite his own protestations to the contrary, did write the play (substantially in 1891) in the hope that the renowned French actress Sarah Bemhardt would act the part of Salome for her London season and, yet more importantly, in an effort to make the play acceptable to toe Censor, who would normally forbid the performance of a play in English if it dramatised Scripture, but not one written in French. Disappointingly to Wilde, and while Bemhardt and others were rehearsing the French Sa/omt in June 1892, the Censor prohib- ited the play regardless. Although this meant that the play could not be per- formed in England, Wilde was not prevented from publishing it, and hence the French version appeared simultaneously in Paris and London in 1893. For the preparation ofan English version, Wilde commissioned Douglas as ttanslator. Everyone agrees that Wilde was disappointed with what Douglas originally produced. There is disagreement, however, as to what happened subsequently. Some recent commentators have veered towards the view that the English ver- sion that was published in 1894 may be considered fairly close to what Wilde had hoped to see all along. Thus we find Joseph Donohue writing with obvious approval: 'Peter Raby concludes that Wilde. revised Douglas's draft "to the point tll 6 where it became his own once more • Isobel Murray, the editor ofa recent sub- stantial anthology of Wilde's major works, shows herself well aware of disap- proval of Douglas's translation, though she does not realise that many have mis- taken Ross's amended version for Douglas's. She says: 'It is a measure of what has been judged the unsatisfactoriness of the following text [she prints that of 4. For accounts of the development ofthe play, its date ofcomposition and events prior to publica- tion, see Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987, and Kerry Powell, Oscar Wilde and the Theatre ofthe 1890s, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. For morc recent work on Sa/omt generally, see William T ydeman and Steven Price, Wilde: 'Sa/ome', Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, and Peter Raby, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, especially Chapter 8, ]oseph Donohue's 'Distance, Death and Desire in Sa/ome'. Informative accounts ofWilde scholarship are presented by Ian Small, in Oscar Wild( Revalued· N(w Materials and Methods ofResearch, Greenboro, NC: ELT Press, 1993, and Oscar Wi/de: Reunt Research, Greenboro, NC: ELT Press, 2000. 5. Oscar Wi/de andth( Theatre ofthe 1890s, Chapter 3. 6. See Donohue, p.122, quoting Peter Raby, Oscar Wilde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p.102. 134 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia [5 New Zealand Bulletin 1894], originally Lord Alfred Douglas's translation of Salome from Wilde's French, that Wilde's son, Vyvyan Holland, his biographer, Richard Ellmann, and critic Rodney Shewan [she overlooks R.A. Walker's translation of Ross's version'] have each found it necessary to re-translate the play.' Despite Murray's acknowledgement of the negative,iews of others, one nevertheless gains the distinct impression here, from some of the phrasing ('what has been judged' ... 'have each found it necessary') that she does not find Douglas's translation par- ticularly bad. This impression is reinforced when she refers to 'the evidence of a number of Wilde's letters that he found the translation unsatisfactory but ac- cepted it with $6me (probably extensive) alterations,.8 I see nothing to justify any optimis- tic feeling that Wilde's revision may have been sufficiently extensive to make ! it lhis own once more', to use Raby's , phrase. To quote an observation made by Donohue, there is no doubt about Wilde's 'introducing some changes into , Douglas's version, the exact nature and \ ,I :' • ;I \\ \\/, ! extent of which are unknown but which were evidently sufficient to. preclude crediting Douglas in more than an in- I formal way." As nothing is known about the exact nature and extent of Wilde's 11 -. - changes, we must be wary of claiming, on the basis of very little (and inevitably indirect) evidence, that they were major, L leave alone that Wilde was happy with the text as published. The fact that 7.