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In 1929 a red herring was drawn across the path of Vathek scholarship by Herbert P. Grimsditch.[1] This herring, although not so red or noisome as an earlier one which stated that the French version of Vathek is a retranslation of the English version,[2] presented questions which still trouble English-speaking admirers of Beckford's tale. Grimsditch's herring was a new translation of Vathek, justified in an introduction which stated that the translation of Vathek published in 1786 by Samuel Henley is frequently inaccurate and does not reflect the revisions instigated by Beckford in successive editions in the French language. Grimsditch offered in its place a new and accurate translation of the last-revised French-language edition published in London in 1815.

Without considering the merits of Grimsditch's translation, which is competent although not without its own inaccuracies,[3] I would like to call attention to the dangerous assumption upon which the translation is based, the assumption that the Henley version of Vathek is a translation and may be judged according to its correspondence to the French-language edition it is alleged to translate. Such an assumption could lead to "new and more accurate" translations springing into existence every fifty to one hundred years depending upon the shifting

vagaries of the French and English languages, the inspiration of potential translators and the market for new translations. The assumption that the English Vathek is a translation would relegate it to a low position in English letters since scholars are naturally unwilling to study a work not in its original form.

Grimsditch was accurate in his observation that the English version of Vathek frequently does not supply a faithful rendering of the French text. The versions of Vathek in English and French do differ and the differences are significant. A review of the processes of translation and revision which led to the existence of two differing versions of Vathek will demonstrate, however, that these differences are quite in accord with Beckford's wishes. The main purposes of this paper are to assert the authority of the English version, to demonstrate significant differences between the two final authorized versions and to reach conclusions regarding the substantive relationship between Vathek in English and Vathek in French. This study of the two versions may convince some readers that the English Vathek has considerably more merit than it has been accorded.

The assumption that the English version of Vathek published in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is a translation is only half right and Grimsditch's contention that the English version of Vathek should reflect the last-revised French-language edition of 1815 is totally wrong; both positions ignore the history of publication of the English version. Doubts about the authority of the Henley version result in part from the well-known story that the impecunious Henley published his translation in 1786 without Beckford's knowledge and counter to Beckford's express direction to postpone publication for at least a year.[4] It appears to be less well-known that Beckford collaborated in the preparation of the English version. The record of the correspondence between Beckford and Henley reflects clearly a procedure whereby Henley sent completed sections of his translation to

Beckford for correction. A letter to Henley of 26 February 1785 indicates Beckford's delight on receiving the first part of Henley's translation: "Your translation has all the spirit of the Caliphs & their daemons. I long for the continuation, & hope you will gratify my impatience."[5] Beckford's next letter of 21 March 1785 shows his enthusiasm to be undiminished even after a month's deliberation:

Beckford's next letter finds him correcting Henley's translation according to his promise: "I shall sit down immediately to revise Vathec, and much approve yr idea of prefacing the tale with some explanation of its costume" [9 April 1785].[7] The remaining record of correspondence shows the nature of the collaboration: Beckford's letters give advice on the text but freely supply information to Henley on matters of "costume"; Henley's replies concern themselves with details of Arabian history and culture but offer advice on the text of the tale. Two of Henley's recorded suggestions were incorporated into the text of the English Vathek: the substitution of palampores for chintzes and the alteration of the punishment that overtakes Carathis. Three significant facts are revealed from the correspondence between Beckford and Henley and its relationship to the authoritative 1816 edition of the English text: the English version prepared by Henley had Beckford's enthusiastic approval; Beckford collaborated in its preparation; neither Beckford nor Henley felt constrained to make the English version a faithful representation of the French.

Beckford's involvement in the preparation of the English version precludes it from being treated as an ordinary translation. Not only did Beckford collaborate in the preparation of the original English version, but later, when he had the time and inclination, he revised thoroughly the text and notes of the English version for the second edition of 1816. The extent of that revision is revealed in a recent

publication of Vathek edited by Dr. Roger Lonsdale for Oxford University Press which lists by rough count a total of 518 substantive variants between the first and second editions.[8] If, as Grimsditch has noted, there are discrepancies between the text of Vathek in French and English, they exist because Beckford allowed them to exist. To reject the English Vathek as a bad translation is to accept the dubious position that the English Vathek purports to be a translation, a position that Beckford by his actions seems to have rejected. Indeed, why should Beckford wish to make the English version a faithful translation of the French? Believing himself to be in control of the final English version, he would wish to ensure only that the English text is imbued with the "spirit" (and that is Beckford's word) of Vathek. The English Vathek is, in fact, little less than an independent version of the tale.

The history of publication of Vathek in French demonstrates a similarly independent development of the text. Vathek in French underwent three noteworthy revisions in its first three editions: Lausanne 1787, Paris 1787, and Londres 1815. Of the first revision, owing to the disappearance of Beckford's French manuscript, very little can be known. It seems that, upon being informed of Henley's unauthorized publication of Vathek in English, Beckford placed the French manuscript in the hands of David Levade,[9] a professor of theology in Lausanne, with instructions to correct any faulty French and to rush it into print. Beckford, although proud of his fluency in French, appears to have had no illusions about the purity of his usage. That Levade's revisions were minor is borne out by the existence of an early, and very literal translation of the manuscript done into English in 1782 by Beckford's tutor, Dr. John Lettice. This fragmentary translation bears a remarkably close resemblance in diction and word-order to the French text published by Levade.[10] The inadequacy of

Levade's revision of the manuscript is demonstrated further by the remarkable impurity of the French and by the fact that a heavily-corrected version was published in Paris at the end of July 1787. The improved French of the Paris edition is believed to be the result of the attentions of François Verdeil, Beckford's personal physician, and Louis-Sebastian Mercier, a playwright, critic and journalist, the author of Tableau de Paris. The Paris edition formed the basis of the succeeding and most authoritative French version published twenty-eight years later. This edition, Londres 1815, was the first French-language edition to be published under Beckford's entire supervision; its relatively few revisions are, for this reason, of particular importance.

For the sake of clarity and by way of summation, I will insert here a brief description of the first five editions of Vathek.

a. In English

• An Arabian Tale. From an Unpublished Manuscript with Notes Critical and Explanatory. London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Church-yard, and Entered at the Stationer's Hall. MDCCLXXXVI.

  This is the unauthorized publication edited by Samuel Henley. A re-issue of this edition with a cancel-title leaf appeared in 1809.

• Vathek. Translated from the Original French, Third Edition, Revised and Corrected. London: Printed for W. Clarke, New Bond Street. MDCCCXVI.

  This is the true second edition. A second issue of this edition which includes a number of revisions supplies the text used in my comparisons. A third issue, with the title page altered to include the names of the booksellers, Taylor and Hessey, is without textual significance.

b. In French

• Vathek. A Lausanne, chez Isaac Hignou & Compe. M. DCC. LXXXVII.

  This edition was edited by David Levade.

• Vathek, Conte Arabe. A Paris, Chez Poinçot, Libraire, rue de la Harpe, près Saint-Côme, No. 135. 1787.

  This edition was edited by Louis-Sebastian Mercier and François Verdeil.

• Vathek. A Londres; Chez Clarke, New Bond Street. 1815.

  This edition supplies the text used in my comparisons.

Thus the history of the first five editions of Vathek in English and French records five significant revisions and the varying influences of

five editors: the English text was prepared and revised first by Henley and Beckford in collaboration and then by Beckford alone; the French text passed through the hands of Levade for the first edition, Verdeil and Mercier for the second, and, so far as we know, Beckford alone for the third edition. The third edition of the French text published in 1815 and the second edition of the English published in 1816 are of particular significance because of the special attention Beckford paid to them: the costly format (heavy leading and good quality paper) and careful revision (although more extensive in the English than in the French) suggest that Beckford intended them to be authoritative editions, brought out during a period of leisure after the hurried and unsatisfactory publication of earlier editions. The facts that the two editions were proximate in time and published by the same house, that of William Clarke of New Bond Street, indicate the possibility that the revisions of the editions may have proceeded simultaneously and the certainty that Beckford had the opportunity of bringing the two texts into correspondence had he so wished.

In Vathek, then, we have a literary rarity: a work published in two languages, with both versions bearing the authority of the author's own revisions. Like Grimsditch, many commentators have noted that there are significant differences between the two texts, even in their final, authoritative forms. It is a valid critical enquiry to examine these differences and to determine the nature of the relationship between the texts of Vathek published in 1815 and 1816. Thoroughly done, however, such a comparison would require about fifty pages to record the collation notes without commentary. My remarks in the succeeding pages are based on a selection of readings which are distinctly divergent and which form part of a larger pattern of significant divergency. The thesis which these pages will attempt to demonstrate is that a reader, familiar only with Vathek in French, will derive a significantly different sense of the work from that of a reader familiar only with the English version. A study of divergencies reveals three broad areas in which the French differs from the English: in the use of irony, in characterization and in tonal structure.

In the appendix to this paper I have listed thirty-eight sets of readings which demonstrate significant substantive differences between the French and English versions of Vathek in the areas I am examining. The selected readings are presented in a note form consisting of five elements:

• (a) page and line reference to the French-language version, Londres 1815;

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• (b) the reading from that edition;
• (c) square bracket;
• (d) page and line reference to the English-language version, London 1816;
• (e) the reading from that edition.

Example:

• (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
• 38:23 en foule ] 46:12 crowd, and occasioned no little noise References made to any reading in the subsequent discussion will be to the page and line of the Londres edition.