There’s a lot of other background info on the site that readers will find helpful.
But it’s free and you can download it to read offline if you want. Some of the edits have resulted in typos or stilted English. The text has also been edited from Brewitt-Taylor’s original, but not always for the better. This free online edition takes Brewitt-Taylor’s translation and changes the Wade-Giles names to pinyin. Supplementary Materials: Reader notes, maps, introduction, commentary by sinologist Rafe de Crespigny. Romance of Three Kingdoms, online, trans. Just look at the excerpt below and you will see what I mean. It does have a nice introduction explaining the work, and he states that major scenes are translated in full, but the rest is just a summary of what happens. Palmer translated 1/3 of the original novel, according to his introduction, and because he chose to translate it in present-tense, it reads like a plot summary (see excerpt below). Supplementary Materials: Map, list of main characters, introduction, footnotes (very few), chronology.Ĭurrent Edition: Penguin, 2018, 1 volume. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 2018, trans. However, this edition is conveniently available as an ebook. Or maybe just her thoughts on the project. I would have liked to know what edition she translated, how she went about translating, especially how she decided what to condense, etc. Inverson edited it, but though there is a dedication from Iverson, there’s nothing from Su Yumei. This project is a joint venture in which Yu Sumei translated the work, and then Ronald C. There are notes, but not near as many as in Roberts’ translation, and there is curiously not a word from the translator herself. There is no introduction explaining the background of the novel or the background of the Three Kingdoms period. The biggest flaw with this translation, in my opinion, is the lack of supplementary materials. For example, the former two translators translate the letter that Yuan Shao wrote to Wang Yun, while Yu Sumei just tells us the gist of its contents.
It’s comparable to Roberts’ translation, though there is more condensing and paraphrasing than in Brewitt-Taylor’s and Roberts’ translation. Yu Sumei’s translation is touted on the publisher’s page as being “more readable than past versions”, though it is never explained why that is. Supplementary Materials: List of main characters, footnotes.Ĭhinese Romanization: Hanyu Pinyin (two-character names are transcribed incorrectly with a hyphen separating them, ex: Cao Meng-de)Ĭurrent Edition: Tuttle Publishing, 2014, 3 volumes.
Looks like if you want to read Roberts’ full translation, you’ll need to get a paper copy. There’s also another ebook version with mountains on the cover that is also abridged (see listing below). Also the ebook edition listed on the 4-volume Foreign Language Press edition on Amazon is some comic book, not the ebook version of Roberts’ translation.
Of course, since Dong Zhuo’s back is turned to Cao Cao, if he looked down at a reflector sewn on his clothing, it would be reflecting the wall, not Cao Cao, who is behind him.īEWARE of the black cover ebook edition of this on Amazon. Also, in the scene where Cao Cao is about to stab Dong Zhuo with a dagger, Roberts’ translates 衣鏡 as a “metal reflector sewn on his clothing” instead of a dressing mirror.
The first character in the Chinese expression, 撫掌, does mean to rub, but in this case, the two characters together just means to clap. In the excerpt below, he has Cao Cao “rubbing his hands and laughing loudly”. Still, there are some mistranslations in Roberts’ translation as well. Those other translators just come right out and name him, spoiling this little bit of mini suspense. For example, in the excerpt below, his is the only translation that briefly hides Cao Cao’s identity as the one who claps until Wang Yun spots him. Roberts’ translation also follows the original syntax more closely than any of the other translators. He has more notes than anyone else, including some which offer comments from Mao Zonggang and Mao Lun, the influential Qing dynasty commentators on the novel. Moss Roberts’ translation is about as “definitive” of a translation as you could want, in my opinion. – includes illustrations for each chapter. of California Press, 2004, 2 volumes.įoreign Language Press, 1995, 4-volume box set (mass market paperback size). FLP edition also has illustrations for each chapter.Ĭurrent Edition: Univ. Supplementary Materials: Afterword by Moss Roberts, Character list, terms/titles list, ~100 pages of notes, Chronology of main events. Moss Roberts, University of California Press, 2004