Hergé began writing the Tintin adventures in 1929, and by the 1950s he had attained legendary status in the francophone world. All of the Tintin adventures were eventually translated into English, but not without some difficulty and controversy. Apart from the Dutch edition for Belgium's Flemish population there had been no translation work prior to 1952, when two volumes were experimentally rendered in German, Spanish and English to keep pace with Tintin's broadening international appeal. The house of Casterman, Hergé's long-time publisher, issued all the first translations (Le Secret de la Licorne, and Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge), but they have lost track of the identity of the English translators. The 1952 editions are rare collectors' items. By the end of the decade several foreign publishers had taken the initiative in producing translations for their home markets.

     Beyond coping with difficult idiomatic expressions, some translators have encountered insurmountable cultural problems. Hergé was particularly amused by the Japanese difficulty with Dupont and Dupond (Thomson and Thompson). The Tokyo publisher indicated that such a pair of blunderers in positions of public responsibility would have committed hari kari long ago. The translation process involves supplying foreign publishers with color plates in which the text balloons and captions have been left blank. Compressed fonts or excessive white space in the balloons are often of sign of idiomatic difficulties encountered by the translators. Lettering that is an integral part of the illustrations, such as street signs, are whited out and overlaid with translations if necessary.

     In 1958, Methuen Childrens's Books Ltd. of London undertook to publish an English edition, thanks in large part to the enthusiasm of Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner, who volunteered to do the translations. Their labor of love, although much praised by Hergé, has been overlooked by the critics. They initially selected titles for translation in an order that would introduce the principal characters in a logical sequence, and they saved those that presented difficulties until last.

     Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner enjoyed a unique working relationship with Hergé, consulting freely with him about the interpretation of difficult passages, and exerting an unusual influence on the revision of the French editions. At their suggestion, Hergé completely re-illustrated The Black Island since the original English and Scottish settings would not be altogether convincing to a British audience. Hergé sent a colleague across the Channel to do location sketches, and in the process updated the setting from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. He also took the opportunity to correct some errors, such as disarming the British police. Inflation also took a toll: the counterfeiters whom Tintin brought to justice were now printing £5 instead of £1 notes.

     The Land of Black Gold also presented problems. The translators felt that children would not understand the original allusions to the Irgun in nascent Israel at the end of the British Palestine Mandate. (Hergé started the book in 1939, was interrupted by the war, and completed it in 1948-50.) In the original version, Tintin was arrested by the British authorities in Haifa, and subsequently kidnapped by Jews and then by Arabs. Hergé reillustrated and rewrote part of the book, eliminating all references to the British and Jews, and setting the story instead in his imaginary emirate of the Khemed. The result was a simplified plot with which he was even more pleased. The delay in publishing this volume forced British readers to wait ten years for an explanation to the Thompsons' strange growth of multicolored hair during the lunar adventure, which stemmed from a mishap in the Arabian desert.

     From the start, Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner agreed that literal translations were not the best approach. They sought instead to produce an English version with literary merit in its own right. They had a completely free hand, but in seeking to convey the original intent of Hergé's jokes and Belgian-French puns, they repeatedly turned to the author for assistance. In some instances they even surpassed Hergé, as with the Gaelic dialect in The Black Island. In others, they have easily equalled the author's wit, as in the rendering of the South American "Arumbaya" tribal tongue in The Broken Ear and The Picaros.

     The translators also anglicized the home setting of Tintin's adventures in order to make the stories more palatable to a "rather chauvinistic audience." Thus Captain Haddock's Chateau de Moulinsart became Marlinspike Hall, but no readers have complained of such anomalies as Belgian police patrolling the "English" countryside.

     Tintin in America, which first appeared in 1931, was not published by Methuen until 1978, after Hergé had partly altered the objectionable representation of Blacks. Despite the obvious period setting, a leading Canadian bookseller refused to stock the book, and the American publisher waited for a year before marketing the controversial volume. Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner saved Le Lotus Bleu for last since they felt that presenting the context of the Sino-Japanese War to today's children would be a major hurdle. When it finally appeared in 1983, they included an unprecedented historical disclaimer to establish the complex setting. Although these last problematic books had been translated into other languages without stirring up significant adverse criticism, Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner felt that English-speaking world -- with its racism and sexism watchdog committees -- was more chauvinistic, and would require considerable cultivating before it could accept and understand Hergé's earliest works.

     By the late 1970s it was clear that Hergé no longer had the energy or interest to extensively rewrite and re-illustrate his books, so the translators shelved any intent to work on Tintin au Congo with its embarrassingly paternalistic colonialism (written in 1930) for fear of "producing a furor among our liberal friends." (The book was nevertheless a great hit in Zaire, the former Belgian Congo.) They likewise refused to touch the crude anti-communist polemic of Tintin au Pays des Soviets, which even Hergé had refused to re-issue in color (as he did after 1943 with all his other pre-war books). In 1973 Hergé gave in to popular pressure, and reissued an archival edition of the original Soviets volume. Demand for all manifestations of his work continued to escalate even after his death in 1983, and the translators also gave in to the pressure. Casterman published their translation of the archival black and white version of the Congo in 1982, and the Soviets appeared in English in 1989. Hergé died leaving a twenty-fourth book unfinished and strict instructions that Tintin was to die with him rather than be continued by others. After some controversy and squabbling, his executors published Tintin et l'Alph-Art in its rough, unfinished form in 1986. This too finally appeared in English in 1990. Lonsdale-Cooper and Turner had completed a thirty-year labor of love in translating Hergé's works.

     Shortly after Tintin's first appearance in Britain in 1958, Golden Press of New York began publication of an American edition. Deciding that U.S. readers required an American idiom, they hired Danielle Gorlin to translate five books and Nicole Duplaix a sixth (King Ottokar's Sceptre). After a poor reception by an unresponsive public, Golden Press abandoned the venture. Pierre Servais of Casterman felt that the American publisher simply gave up too soon, since it took the British edition five years to become a staple part of the children's book market there. The Gorlin-Duplaix versions, although noticeably inferior to the British editions, are now rare collectors' pieces.

     Tintin's initial appearance in English coincided with a wave of hostility from educators and librarians against the comic strip form. The campaign was originally directed at American horror comics but soon embraced even upstanding characters like Little Orphan Annie. In England, where comics were viewed with contempt, Tintin received an unexpected boost from the august Times Literary Supplement, which devoted a front page article to a scholarly and praiseworthy analysis of the Tintin phenomenon. "Here's a good comic," was Newseek's announcement to the U.S. in 1960, but Albert Leventhal, president of Golden Press, was quoted as saying that the United States was as far behind in the Tintin race as it was in the missile race. No more Tintin books appeared under his imprint after that pessimistic statement.

     In 1974, Peter Davidson, director of Atlantic Monthly Press, initiated a new American edition. Relying on his own children to decide which titles would initially put Tintin's best foot forward, Davidson issued four titles that year under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint, using the Lonsdale-Cooper/Turner translations without alteration. By 1979 Little, Brown had issued all the then available English translations and they had secured a solid foothold in the American market.

Chronological Bibliography

(presented in the order of the French canon)

	Original French 1	English Editions 2
		Methuen Ltd. 3	Golden Press 4	Little, Brown Co.5	Sundancer 3
Tintin ... in the Land of the Soviets Tintin au Pays des Soviets	(1929) 1929				1989
Tintin ... in the Congo Tintin au Congo	(1930) 1946				1991
Tintin in America Tintin en Amerique	(1931) 1946	1978		1979
Cigars of the Pharaoh Les Cigares du Pharaon	(1932) 1955	1971		1975
The Blue Lotus Le Lotus Bleu	(1934) 1946	1983		1984
Tintin and the Broken Ear L'Oreille Cassée	(1935) 1943	1975		1978
The Black Island L'Ile Noire	(1937) 1966	1966		1975
King Ottokar's Sceptre Le Sceptre d'Ottokar	(1938) 1947	1958	1959	1974
The Crab with the Golden Claws Le Crabe aux Pinces d'Or	(1940) 1943	1958	1959	1974
The Shooting Star L'Étoile Mystèrieuse	(1941) 1941	1961		1978
The Secret of the Unicorn Le Secret de la Licorne	(1942) 1942	1959	1959	1974
Red Rackham's Treasure Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge	(1943) 1943	1959	1959	1974
The Seven Crystal Balls Les Sept Boules de Cristal	(1943) 1943	1963		1975
Prisoners of the Sun Le Temple du Soleil	(1944) 1944	1963		1975
Land of Black Gold Tintin au Pays de l'Or Noir	(1939) 1971	1972		1975
Destination Moon Objectif Lune	(1950) 1950	1959	1960	1976
Explorers on the Moon On a Marché sur la Lune	(1952) 1952	1959	1960	1976
The Calculus Affair L'Affaire Tournesol	(1954) 1954	1960		1976
The Red Sea Sharks Coke en Stock	(1956) 1967	1960		1976
Tintin in Tibet Tintin au Tibet	(1958) 1958	1962		1975
The Castafiore Emerald Les Bijoux de la Castafiore	(1961) 1961	1963		1975
Flight 714 Vol 714 pour Sydney	(1966) 1966	1968		1975
Tintin and the Picaros Tintin et les Picaros	(1975) 1975	1976		1978
Tintin and Alph-Art Tintin et l'Alph-Art	1986				1990
Books derived from Films
Tintin and the Golden Fleece Tintin et la Toison d'Or (film 1960)	1962	1965
Tintin and the Blue Oranges Tintin et les Oranges Bleues (film 1964)	1965	1967
Tintin and the Lake of Sharks Tintin et le Lac aux Requins (animated film 1972)	1973	1973		1989

Footnotes:

1. The dates of the French editions are that of first serialization, followed by that of the edition currently in print. The latter dates, except for Tintin in the Congo, are the copyright date of the artwork for the English language editions.

2. In addition to the above table, Casterman (Paris/Tournai) published English editions (translators unknown) of The Secret of the Unicorn (1952), Red Rackham's Treasure (1952), and Tintin in the Congo (trans. by Lonsdale-Cooper/Turner, 1982).

3. All Methuen Children's Books (London) and Sundancer (London) translations are by Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner. Magnet is a paperback imprint of Methuen. Sundancer editions are the original black and white illustrations.

4. All Golden Press (New York) translations are by Danielle Gorlin, except King Ottokar's Sceptre by Nicole Duplaix.

5. The Little, Brown Co. (Boston) editions were originally published in association with Atlantic Monthly Press, and later under the Joy Street Books imprint. Translations are the same as the Methuen editions.

To find any of these books, in print or out of print, use various online book search facilities.

This page is reproduced here with the kind permission of Todd Mills. The page can be found in its original context at: http://www.regiments.org/special/essays/tbibeng.htm.