Popularity (domestic and abroad)?


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Posted by Mountaineer on August 21, 2008 at 10:21:04 user Mountaineer.

Hi,
I accidently discovered Ransome's books only several months ago and was completely spellbound from the very beginning and read them all (except Big 6 because CC was my least favorite and also, because I want to have one left for some time), some already twice over. It's almost embarassing for a grown up person (mid-thirties) to be ordering new children's books every other week...

For some reason (I'd like to find out why, but am not sure how) Ransome hast largely been ignored in Germany. There are translations of five books (SA, SD, WH, WDMTGS, ML) mostly from the '40ties through the 60ties, but apparently there have been no new editions/printings since about 1968!, with the exception of "Missee Lee" ("Seeraeuberkoenigin Li" [pirate queen Li]) that appeared in '79. All of them have long been out of print and rather hard to find in used stores (and/or rather expensive)
(I think this unavailability is truly deplorable; I actually consider writing to some publishers to ask them about the old translations and inquire why there haven't been any new editions)

So I now wonder why I never read those as a kid (when I might have been even more fond of them, or maybe not, see below).
According to the wonderful pages with the book covers and lists of translations it seems that Ransome's popularity varies a lot among different countries. The whole series has been translated into Czech and Japanese, but only a handful of the books or less into French, German and other European languages.

In spite of having perused a rather old-fashioned local library between ages 8 and 14 in the '80ties I completely missed Ransome. I am sure I would have loved at least some of the books back then, because I was terribly fond of pirates, explorers and also sailing (I did a tiny little sailing later on as a teenager). Maybe the translations are not very good, I haven't seen any of them yet, but I will try to get my hands on some of them.
Another explanation could be that the very detailed descriptions (especially of the sailing) might confuse younger children and older children might expect a higher level of danger. I am not sure if I'd have appreciated Ransome's realism as a kid, I loved (between 8 and 10) Blyton's books, in spite of their unrealistic plots, wooden and clicheed characters etc.). The S&A series may be surely be showing its age in some details, but certainly not in spirit. The independence and equality of the children is rather modern, still today...

Any ideas about these huge differences in popularity? And how popular are the books in the english-speaking world nowadays? Differences between UK and US/Canada/Australia?

Mountaineer



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