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Sienkiewicz's First Translator, Jeremiah Curtin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

H. B. Segel
H. B. Segel*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

      Let Peary seek his Arctic goal;
      His countrymen prefer a Pole
      Less brumal and uncertain;
      And Roe and Howells the prolix
      Must bow to Henry Sienkiewicz,
      Democratized by Curtin.
      Anonymous, "Columbus Sienkiewicz,"
      The Outlook, New York,
      March 12, 1898

The subject of Henryk Sienkiewicz and America is hardly exhausted with the acknowledgment of the enormous popularity of Quo Vadis in the United States. Sienkiewicz himself visited America in 1876, in fact traveled extensively through the country and recorded his impressions at some length in his Listy z Ameryki (Letters from America), a large part of which was translated into English and published in 1959. Sienkiewicz's relations with Helena Modrzejewska (Modjeska) and her debut in the American theater at the time of his visit add to the interest of his sojourn in the United States. Another phase of Sienkiewicz's relations with this country embraces the fascinating career of his American translator, Jeremiah Curtin, whose name remains as intimately linked with translations from Polish literature, particularly the works of Sienkiewicz, as Constance Garnett's has been with English renditions of the Russian masters of the nineteenth century.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1965 , pp. 189 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1965

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References

1 Portrait of America: Letters of Henryk Sienkiewicz, ed. and trans. Charles Morley (New York, 1959).

2 Memoirs of Jeremiah Curtin, ed., with notes and introduction, by Joseph Schafter (Madison, Wisconsin, 1940; “Wisconsin Historical Publications, Biography Series, ” Vol. II). This is my principal source for the biographical sketch of Curtin. It will be referred to hereafter as Memoirs.

3 The Century, LVI, No. 3 (July 1898), 428-33.

4 Spotkanie Curtina z Sienkiewiczem (Milwaukee, 1938).

5 “Jeremiasz Curtin i jego zdanie o Sienkiewiczu, ” Tygodnik Illustrowany, No. 10 (March 10), 1900, pp. 195-97.

6 Krżyzanowski, Henryk Sienkiewicz: Kalendarz życia i twórczości, pp. 214-17.

7 The Letters of John Fiske, ed. Ethel F. Fisk (New York, 1940), p. 127.

8 That Curtin may have begun to learn Polish from Polish immigrants while still a young man in Wisconsin is mentioned by a Harvard classmate, Denny, Clarence H., in his brief article “Jeremiah Curtin, ” The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine (Boston), XV (1906-7), 359 Google Scholar. Curtin himself makes no mention of this in his memoirs, and the possibility seems remote.

9 Myths and Folktales of the Russians, Western Slavs and Magyars (Boston, 1890), p. xxv.

10 Alfred Nutt, in the introduction to Curtin, Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World Collected from Oral Tradition in Southwest Munster (London, 1895), p. v.

11 Memoirs, pp. 410-11.

12 Quoted in Denny, p. 360.

13 Quoted in Curtin, Charles A., “Jeremiah Curtin, ” The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society (New York), XXXI (1937), 65 Google Scholar. Curtin's copy of this dictionary, bearing his signature, today sits on an open shelf in the main reading room of Harvard University's Widener Library.

14 Memoirs, pp. 429-30.

15 Ibid., p. 445.

16 Ibid., pp. 530-31.

17 Ibid., p. 536.

18 Ibid., p. 600.

19 Ibid., p. 646.

20 Ibid., p. 662.

21 Ibid., p. 664.

22 Ibid., pp. 672-73.

23 Ibid., p. 690

24 Ibid., p. 692.

25 The text of the letter appears in Henryk Sienkiewicz, Dzieła, ed. Julian Krzyżanowski, LV (Warsaw, 1951) 14-15. He had forgotten, Sienkiewicz wrote, that he had given the rights for the dramatization of Quo Vadis to d'Arborio in Italy and to Curtin in America. Because of his earlier promise to Curtin, Sienkiewicz informed Barrett that it was impossible for him to accept the honorarium Barrett had sent him and that he was therefore returning the money.

26 Memoirs, p. 772.

27 Ibid., p. 692.

28 Ibid., p. 773.

29 Ibid., p. 787.

30 Ibid., p. 837.

31 Ibid., pp. 847-48.

32 Ibid., p. 873.

33 Ibid., p. 887.

34 Ibid., p. 900.

35 Literary World, July 5, 1890, p. 217.

36 Ibid., Jan.2, 1892, p. 7.

37 Athenaeum, Sept. 3, 1892, p . 318.

38 Ibid., March 24, 1894, p . 375.

39 Ibid., Oct. 24, 1896, p . 562.

40 Ibid., Sept. 5, 1896, p. 320.

41 Living Age, XIV (1897), 527.

42 Ibid., p. 521.

43 Children of the Soil (Boston, 1897), pp. 4-5.