H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man (1897)

H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man (1897), Introduction by Christopher Priest

Strangely enough, Penguin didn’t elect H.G. Wells to the status of “classics” until 2005, when most of his novels entered the fold, including the four early classics, The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds.  The reason for this is the lasting stigma of “science fiction,” which is still seen as somewhat sensational, genre-specific, and of little literary value.  In the same way, the great science fiction novels of Pierre Boulle (Planet of the Apes, etc.) and Asimov (I, Robot, etc.) remain stapes of fantasy and science fiction imprints rather than mainstream classics.  So I was delighted to see Wells get the treatment his novels so richly deserve, particularly with the cool, somewhat retro designs which grace each Penguin volume.  Of all of his books, perhaps The Invisible Man is my favorite, as it is not simply a “science fiction” book, but a book that heralds in a completely new genre of literature in general: the superhero/villain narrative.  Every superhero comic owes something to The Invisible Man, and in every supervillain’s DNA we recognize the familiar pattern of Griffin, the infamous “Invisible Man.”  Of course, the book is not entirely original, as it develops a familiar theme found both in Frankenstein (1818) and the more recent Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)—that we all have something within us that can be unleashed, call it our “id” or our primal self, which can do deeds of unspeakable good or evil.  The sense of a dark other haunts all of 19^th century literature, but Wells adds a crucial ingredient to lift it out of the realm of Gothic literature: science.  The veneer of scientific possibility that hovers over the book, along with its by-the-minute, journalistic detail, makes us believe in the work in a way that Mary Shelley could neither accomplish or cared to attempt.  In short, it’s hard to read this book and not imagine the terror which its original audience most have experienced when first cutting open its pages (a sense that Orson Wells famously captured in his radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds). 

The First Penguin: E.V. Rieu's The Odyssey

1. Homer, The Odyssey, translated by E.V. Rieu

Fittingly, this is one of the first Penguin Classics I purchased, way back in 1992 at a used bookstore in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  I still have the price tag on the front cover of a very worn paperback book: $1.00.  Even as a high school student (as I was then) I could foot that bill.  Imagine when books were such rare and precious commodities, buying one of the great masterpieces of the ancient world for spare change!  Of course, that was the very idea behind paperbacks in general, and Penguin Classics in particular: to offer laymen/women the fruits of a specialized education.  Not surprisingly, this was the first book published in the Penguin Classics imprint way back in January of 1946.  It is a testament to the story as well as to the translation that it still reads like a lightning-fast, edge-of-the-seat modern work.  And in this case, it actually reads like a novel, for Rieu made a prose translation of the epic which coheres as a modern novel with remarkably little squinting. 

In general, I am against prose translations; or if not against, exactly, at least uninterested in reading them.  Poetry should be poetry, even in translation, to capture the sense of music, rhythm, and metaphor.  Also, the work should preserve some sense of heightened purpose, particularly in ancient literature which was meant to be recited by a single performer, in a communal, concert setting.  A prose translation would be like a modern band handing out sheet music for the audience to read over while they simply recite the songs’ lyrics.  In short, the sense of a performance would be lost, even though English cannot hope to capture what made the Greek world sing.  All that said, Rieu’s translation is masterful and quite successful.  While it removes the work from a sense of communal performance, it makes an artful slip into another community, that of the novel: so instead of hearing a great bard recite the famous invocation to the Muses, we now hear the voice of a Dickensian narrator, inviting us for an intensively private/public experience.  As Rieu explains his Introduction from 1945, “the Odyssey, with its well-knit plot, its psychological interest, and its interplay of character, is the true ancestor of that long line of novels that have followed it.  And though it is the first, I am not sure that it is not still the best.  Let the reader decide for himself.”

Confessions of a Penguin Snob

My earliest experiences reading classic literature are bound up in Penguin Classics. Indeed, even thinking of the word "book" conjures up a gently-used, iconic black paperback with the trademark Penguin logo on it.  When I first caught onto the fact that the literature we were being fed piece-meal in high school existed in a pure, unadulterated form, I scoured the local used bookstores for copies of The Odyssey, The Canterbury Tales, and Pride and Prejudice.  The shelves were lined with copy after copy of these classic works, all donated (I imagine) from college students who had bought them for English and Humanities classes and then dumped them for a quick buck.  I remember pouring over dozens of copies of Chaucer's masterpiece, trying to fathom why so many would end up in the same place.  I was also surprised that one publisher seemed to corner the market on classics: again and again, the word "Penguin" kept cropping up on the cracked spines.  Thus began my collection of Penguin Classics, leading me on a haphazard journey through English, French, and Russian literature, opening doors to authors and cultures I scarcely knew existed.  

I quickly became a Penguin snob, reading only books that were published under the Penguin Classics imprint, which made my reading a bit insular, but brought me up to speed on hundreds of years of novels, poetry, drama, and non-fiction.  Before I knew it, I was speeding through an English degree at the local university, which was influenced, no doubt, by my professors' choice of Penguin Classics for their courses (though a few threw in Oxford UP for good measure).  What started out as a hobby became a way of life, and ten years later, a vocation: I defended my Ph.D. in June of 2006, and set off a month later to begin my first academic job, boxes and boxes of Penguin books in tow. Today, I teach about 4-5 literature courses a year, each one bolstered with several titles from Penguin's lineup.  In fact, almost every month finds me reading some Penguin or other (though I do read other books--occasionally), so I figured, why not attempt to read every Penguin Classics in existence?  At this point, after 20+ years of reading them, I must be halfway through the list, though the list hasn't exactly been stagnant: new works enter the fold each year, and many authors previously ignored--H.G. Wells, for example--are now prominently arrayed in the iconic black volumes.  So this post will mark my attempt to write about every single book in the catalog, leaning heavily on my own field initially (British literature post 20th century, as well as World Literature of the Renaissance-Enlightenment) before expanding as randomly as I once pulled volumes off the shelves of used bookstores.  I hope this inspires readers to buy more Penguins, read books or authors you either never knew about or had always planned to read, and to consider the importance of translation in a world which, despite thousands of languages and cultures, can seem bound to a single one.  

First up, the very first Penguin ever published, E.V. Rieu's prose translation of Homer's The Odyssey, which coincidentally was one of the first Penguin's I ever purchased.  More on that next time...