There are all sorts of pirates. One that comes to mind is the late Roberto Clemente,
the Pittsburgh kind of pirate. There is the Blackbeard, a.k.a. Edward Teach,
the notorious English pirate who terrorized the West Indies in the early 1700’s.
Then there is Captain Jack Sparrow, based partially on Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith
Richards, a much more lovable pirate. And there are literary pirates. These are
books published without the benefit of royalties being paid to the authors. Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle was pirated as much as any other author.
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| Sherlock Holmes New Mysteries vol. 3 - HIS |
As
a collector of foreign translations of Sherlock Holmes, I have come across many
pirated editions. The late Donald A. Redmond wrote Sherlock Holmes Among the
Pirates: Copyright and Conan Doyle in America 1890-1930, published in 1990 by Greenwood. This books
deals with the pirated editions of A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of
Four. These were just English editions and did not deal with foreign editions.
In China, there was a series called Sherlock
Holmes New Mysteries
that was published in the 1930’s. I have six volumes in the series and I not
not sure how many there were in total. This is just one of the problems facing
pirated editions and especially ones in foreign languages. I used to have a
book-scout named Simon who lived in Beijing and for a period of time, he was
hard on my bank account because he was able to find many early Chinese editions
of the Canon. The six volumes of Sherlock Holmes New Mysteries were from Simon. I do not know what happened to Simon. I have not heard from him in several years. But for a short period of time he was very active in finding things for me.
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| Manchurian Pirate of a Pirate |
Since I do not read Chinese, I depend on Yuichi
Hirayama, BSI, to help me when I get Chinese editions. So when Simon sent me two
separate editions of Sherlock Holmes New Mysteries vol. 03, I was curious
because the covers were similar but the
Chinese characters inside the two books were different. Once of the edition’s
cover matched the artwork on the covers of the other five volumes but the cover
artwork on the other volume 03 looked like someone had drawn it, looking at the
fist volume 03. I took scans of the covers and the inside information and emailed
them to Yuichi.
Imagine my surprise when I got the answer back
telling me that the second volume 03 was very rare, being published in Manchuria
after the Japan invasion in 1931. As it turned out, the first volume 03 is a
pirated edition published in 1936 by Qi Ming Press in Shanghai, China. The book
is “His Last Bow” and was translated by Yang Qirui. The second volume 03 was
published by Fentian
Dashu Press, in Fentian, Manchuria, China in 1939. The translator was not given
but the story is The Hound of the
Baskervilles.” The text of this book is the exact text of Sherlock
Holmes New Mysteries vol. 06 by Qi
Ming Press, also translated by Yang Qirui of the Hound. This makes the second
volume 03 a pirate of a pirate.
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| Sherlock Holmes New Mysteries vol.6 - HOUN |
The world of literary piracy is a strange bird
indeed.
Happy Blogging!!
