| Year |
Translator |
Omissions |
Comments
|
| 1620 |
By "I. F.", attributed to John Florio |
Omits the Proemio and Conclusione dell’autore. Replaces tale III.x with an innocuous tale taken from François de Belleforest’s “Histoires tragiques”, concluding that it “was commended by all the company, ... because it was free from all folly and obscoeneness.” Tale IX.x is also modified, while tale V.x loses its homosexual innuendo. |
“Magnificent specimen of Jacobean prose, [but] its high-handed treatment of the original text produces a number of shortcomings” says G.H. McWilliam, translator of the 1971 Penguin edition (see below). Based not on Boccaccio's Italian original, but on Antoine Le Maçon’s 1545 French translation and Lionardo Salviati's 1582 Italian edition which replaced ‘offensive’ words, sentences or sections with asterisks or altered text (in a different font). The 1940 Heritage Press edition of this 1620 translation restores the two omitted tales by inserting anonymously translated modern English versions.
|
| 1702 |
Anonymous, attributed to John Savage |
Omits Proemio and Conclusione dell’autore. Replaces tale III.x with the tale contained within the Introduction to the Fourth Day. Tale IX.x is bowdlerised, but possibly because the translator was working from faulty sources, rather than deliberately. |
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| 1741 |
Anonymous, posthumously identified as Dr. Charles Balguy |
Omits Proemio and Conclusione dell’autore. Explicitly omits tales III.x and IX.x, and removed the homosexual innuendo in tale V.x: “Boccace is so licentious in many places, that it requires some management to preserve his wit and humour, and render him tolerably decent. This I have attempted with the loss of two novels, which I judged incapable of such treatment; and am apprehensive, it may still be thought by some people, that I have rather omitted too little, than too much.” |
Reissued several times with small or large modifications, sometimes without acknowledgement of the original translator. The 1804 reissue makes further expurgations. The 1822 reissue adds half-hearted renditions of III.x and IX.x, retaining the more objectionable passages in the original Italian, with a footnote to III.x that it is “impossible to render... into tolerable English”, and giving Mirabeau’s French translation instead. The 1872 reissue is similar, but makes translation errors in parts of IX.x. The 1895 reissue (introduced by Alfred Wallis), in four volumes, cites Mr. S. W. Orson as making up for the omissions of the 1741 original, although part of III.x is given in Antoine Le Maçon’s French translation, belying the claim that it is a complete English translation, and IX.x is modified, replacing Boccaccio’s direct statements with innuendo.
|
| 1855 |
W. K. Kelly |
Omits Proemio and Conclusione dell’autore. Includes tales III.x and IX.x, claiming to be "COMPLETE, although a few passages are in French or Italian", but as in 1822, leaves parts of III.x in the original Italian with a French translation in a footnote, and omits several key sentences entirely from IX.x. |
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|
| 1896 |
Anonymous |
Part of tale III.x again given in French, without footnote or explanation. Tale IX.x translated anew, but Boccaccio's phrase "l’umido radicale" is rendered "the humid radical" rather than "the moist root". |
Falsely claims to be a "New Translation from the Italian" and the "First complete English Edition", when it is only a reworking of earlier versions with the addition of what McWilliam calls "vulgarly erotic overtones" in some stories.
|
| 1903 |
J. M. Rigg |
Once more, part of tale III.x is left in the original Italian with a footnote “No apology is needed for leaving, in accordance with precedent, the subsequent detail untranslated”. |
McWiliam praises its elegant style in sections of formal language, but that it is spoiled by an obsolete vocabulary in more vernacular sections. Reissued frequently, including in Everyman's Library (1930) with introduction by Edward Hutton.
|
| 1930 |
Frances Winwar |
Omits the Proemio. |
Introduction by Burton Rascoe. First American translation, and first English-language translation by a woman. "Fairly accurate and eminently readable, [but] fails to do justice to those more ornate and rhetorical passages" says McWilliam. Originally issued in expensive 2-volume set by the Limited Editions Club of New York City, and in cheaper general circulation edition only in 1938.
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