A review by spacestationtrustfund
Les Miserables [With Ribbon Marker] by Victor Hugo

1.0

Thanks for that footnote, Wilbour.

Here's something you should know about the Wilbour edition: it was written in about 6 months and published the same year as the original text.

As you can probably imagine, it didn't end well. Even the most experienced translator would find it an impossible task to accurately translate a nearly 1500-page novel (and, indeed, Wilbour's edition is abridged to only 400 pages) in under a year; I'd estimate a more reasonable timeframe would be closer to 3-5 years depending on the style of writing and the overall difficulty of translating (i.e., how many culturally specific references, do the characters use a lot of slang, etc.).

Charles E. Wilbour, in all his rushed wisdom, used an antiquated style of English and allegedly tried to capture the feeling of the original by retaining French word order—as well as the occasional French word or sentence which he didn't bother to translate whatsoever. This would probably be appealing if your goal is to fetishise French culture; otherwise, it's clunky, dated, and jarring. Absolutely none of the context behind the original novel is present. The politics translate poorly. None of the puns make sense, which is the worst offense. Oh, and it's heavily abridged, with over 1000 pages knocked off. Wilbour also rearranged several of the "digressions" for reasons unknown, so the structure isn't even true to the original.

If you're looking to read Les Misérables, don't get the Wilbour edition. If you're looking to study translation, or Wilbour himself, then you could probably stand to have this in your collection.