Posted by Robert Thompson on June 20, 2006 at 18:15:12 from 80.177.174.120 user robert.
In Reply to: illustrations (Re: SA series and copyright) posted by Lyn on June 20, 2006 at 16:43:07:
The problem with using a different illustrator for S&A is that AR had some specific ideas about how he wanted to portray certain scenes, and in his case, he was not only an author but an illustrator. If the reader has not seen those illustrations, he or she is missing out on part of what AR wanted to communicate, what was in his imagination as he wrote the story.
This argument only holds water if the translation is a direct almost word-for-word version of Ransome's original, but German and Czech early editions certainly are not, moving the English descriptive passages and localities into those countries' own areas, adding suitable illustrations.
Translators had no idea of what "AR wanted to communicate" in the way of illustrations, as he did not illustrate SA and SD until 1938. Indeed, the first ever published illustrator of SA was not AR, nor Clifford Webb, but Helene Carter, illustrator of the US edition.
I'd be interested in the US edition of PM you read "with no illustrations", as far as I know the US version used AR's drawings.