Jana Spáčilová

One of the many genres in children’s literature is the animal story. Stories where the main heroes are animals are among the most popular in children’s fiction. I would like to go back to the beginnings of this genre and look in a more detail at a book which is often considered to have played an important part in laying the foundations of this genre. The book is called Black Beauty and it is a story of a horse’s adventures, disappointments and joys. Its author, Anna Sewell, was writing the book several years during which she suffered from a serious illness. It was the only book she ever wrote. ”Black Beauty” was published near the end of the year 1877, and Anna Sewell lived just long enough to hear of its success. Anna Sewell was a great lover of horses and in her book she tried to speak for the dumb creatures who cannot speak for themselves. In one of her notes about the book she wrote: ”I have for six years been confined to the house and to my sofa, and have from time to time, when I am able, been writing what I think will turn out a little book, its special aim being to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.”(Black Beauty: Appreciation and life of author) Anna Sewell wrote a story not only of a horse but especially of the people in the horse’s life and their different characters and behaviour. She tried to depict not only the hard life of the cab horses but also the hard life of the cabmen: ”In thinking of cab horses I have been lead to think of London cabmen, and am anxious if I can, to present their true condition, and their great difficulties, in a correct and telling manner.” (Black Beauty: Appreciation and life of author) Anna Sewell’s ”little book” was to be read by ”the squire, his lady, their stablemen and boys”. Though not meant to be a children’s book originally, ”Black Beauty” became perhaps one of the most famous animal stories of all time and a children’s classic.

”Black Beauty”, although it has been first published over a century ago, is still popular nowadays. Many children perhaps know the story from its film adaptation or from its abridged forms adapted for younger readers. I have come across several versions of the story, a complete and unabridged edition of ”Black Beauty” published in 1993 by Wordsworth children’s classics, a short abridged version of ”Black Beauty” published by Ladybird children’s classics and retold by Betty Evans and Audrey Daly, a Czech translation ”Černý krasavec” from 1972 by Jana Cahová of the original version ”Black Beauty” published by Penguin Books 1964, and a latest Czech translation from 1997 ”Černý hřebec” by Milan Hausner of an abridged version published in 1992 by Dorling Kindersley Limited, London. I would like to look at these versions in some detail and discuss various aspects as for example in what ways is the abridged version different from the original and how it is adapted to suit the needs of young readers, compare the two translations with the original and see in what ways is the modern version different from the older translation from the point of view of some translations aspects such as proper names (bearing in mind that the modern translated version is not a translation of the original but only of its abridged version). But first of all I would like to say a few words about the story itself.

”Black Beauty” is a story of a horse’s life. It is narrated in the first person, by the horse himself, which makes the whole story seem more ”real” and enables the author to make a deeper emotional impact on the reader. Black Beauty starts his narration from the days when he was a young colt and lived happily and carelessly with his mother, and finishes at his last home where he is reunited with his former stableman and where he is going to spend the rest of his life well looked after by kind owners. In his story Black Beauty describes different places he stayed in, other horses he met on his way, tells about different owners that had him, various jobs he had to perform, and, above all, he talks about the different treatment that he and other horses received from people and the relationships not only between horses and people but also among people themselves. We can roughly divide the book into two parts according to the settings: the countryside and the city - London. The period of life that Black Beauty spent in the country is closely connected with the life of the gentry that owned him. After an almost ideal life in the service of one aristocratic family Black Beauty had to be sold to another place where although he was well looked after, he had to endure various fashion whims of his new owners, which were popular at that time, such as the bearing rein or the cutting of tails. After an accident in which he bruised his knees and therefore was no longer fit to be a ”gentleman’s horse”, Black Beauty was sold and became a job horse the hard work of which ruined him. He was sold and resold many times and finally came to London where he started to work as a cab horse – a most demanding and hard job in which horses often changed due to a high rate of deaths caused by frequent accidents or exhaustion. Both among the gentry and the working class people there were good and bad horse owners, some of them were kind and cared for the animal, some of them were cruel and treated a horse as if it was a machine without any feelings, some did harm to a horse because of their ignorance.

Cruelty and mistreatment of horses appear throughout the book. As I have already mentioned, the special aim Anna Sewell was thinking of when writing the book ”to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses”. The book contains a number of scenes in which the author quite realistically describes the pain and sufferings of horses when being treated cruelly. But scenes describing mistreatment of horses are compensated by scenes showing kindness and understanding in people’s behaviour towards animals. Very often when an incident in which somebody is being cruel to a horse happens, there appears someone who stands up for the animal and tries to ease its hardship by reproaching the person and even punishing him in some way, for example reporting the person to his employer, giving him a sack etc.

In connection with cruelty I would like to mention one point concerning the people that appear in the book. Some of the characters in the book are children, and there is an interesting thing about them, i.e., it seems that it is always the boys (although not all of them) that are cruel to horses and treat them badly and have to be scolded for their behaviour, not even one girl that appears in the book is other than nice and kind. It somewhat induces a stereotype that little girls are good and boys are bad.

The idea of kindness and love not only in the people’s relationship to animals but also between people themselves is very strong in the book and is closely connected with Christianity. Some of the scenes in the book describe how people help each other when in need and how they care for each other.

I would like to look now at the two abridged versions, discussing the Ladybird version rather then the other one which is already a translation of an abridged version which I unfortunately was not able to get. Nevertheless I will at least mention a few things about it as far as the content of the story is concerned.

The Ladybird children’s classics Black Beauty is an abridged version retold by Betty Evans and Audrey Daly adapted for a young reader. First of all, the retold version is considerably shorter than the original with a number of chapters being completely left out, some of the chapters shortened or two or three chapters fused into one. The retold version (hereafter referred to as RV) keeps most of the main characters (both people and horses), i.e., those that play an important part in the story, although some of them are only mentioned in one or two sentences, for example the pony Merrylegs or the cab horse Captain. RT sticks to the main line of the story and tells only about the adventures and misadventures that influenced the horse’s following life most. It leaves out the chapters or parts of chapters that describe the scenery, tell about the lives and characterize minor characters in the story and those that tell about other adventures that happened either to Black Beauty or to other horses, it also leaves out most of the scenes that too realistically describe cruel treatment of horses. A lot of the sentences in RV are taken from the original version and either shortened by leaving out parts of the sentence or long sentences are divided into shorter ones, some sentences remain the same as in the original. Here is a short example for comparison:

Moreover, CAV is supplemented with some additional chapters that are not part of the original version. These chapters, for example Londýn v dobách Černého hřebce, Na koňském tržišti, or Venkovští koně, explain some aspects of life in the 19^th century including for example descriptions of the different types of carts and cabs, the typical procedures at a horse fair, etc. It is also accompanied by a lot of illustrations with captions giving information about the various breeds of a horse, how to look after a horse properly, etc, which make the book more attractive and also a sort of instructional.

The story of the life and adventures of Black Beauty was translated into Czech by Jana Cahova from the English original Black Beauty by Anna Sewell published by Penguin Books 1964. The first edition of this translation was published in 1972. I have not come across any other translation of this original version and therefore I cannot compare Jana Cahova’s (in my opinion very successful) translation Černý krasavec with another version. Nevertheless, I would like to look at at least some aspects of this translation and compare and contrast them with Milan Hausner’s translation of an abridged version of the original ”Eyewitness Classics Black Beauty” published by Dorling Kindersley Limited, London, in 1992. Milan Hausner’s translation ”Černý hřebec” was published in 1997 and it is the latest published version of Black Beauty in Czech.

First of all, I would like to say a few words about the titles of the two books. Jana Cahova used a literal translation Černý krasavec, Milan Hausner translated it as Černý hřebec. I wondered what made Milan Hausner to change the title, because in my opinion Černý krasavec sounds quite natural and keeps more to the original than Černý hřebec. Also, if we consider that it is at the same time a name of a horse, then Černý hřebec sounds as a name rather strange, especially when they call the horse ”Hřebče”, as opposed to ”Krasavče”, because the letter can be a name whereas the former is a word which distinguishes the sex of the animal. It is as strange as if a female dog was named ”Fena”. Moreover, the title Černý hřebec is somewhat misleading because it can suggest another, completely different story about a boy and a black horse, which is known more from its film adaptation, and the title of which is ”Černý hřebec”,(and the horse is called Black).

As far as the names of horses in the story are concerned, Jana Cahová translates all of them except two – Rob Roy and Rory, so Jack becomes Honzík, Lizzie is Líza. Milan Hausner also keeps the original Rob Roy, and also Lizzie. Both translators translate the names that characterize the horses. They both have Black Beauty´s mother Dutchess translated as Vévodkyně, but they differ in translating her nickname – Pet, in Cahová it is Mazlíček, in Hausner it is Holka moje malá. They have a very similar translation in the case of Black Beauty´s friend Ginger – Ryzka and Zrzka, which both correspond to the original and describe the mare´s looks. The two translators differ most in the translation of the name of another important horse in the story – the pony Merrylegs. The name Merrylegs suggests a lively and a happy creature. In Cahová´s version the pony is called Neposeda, Hausner used the name Veselka. Both these names correspond to the meaning of the original name Merrylegs, but in my opinion Neposeda is a better solution because it is undoubtedly a male name, whereas Veselka seems rather odd as a name for a male pony. It also has another connotation as a synonym for the word ´svatba´ , while Neposeda suggests only liveliness and restlessness.

Besides the horses, there appear many human characters in the story as well. Translation of these proper names is another aspect I would like to comment on with regard to the two versions. Milan Hausner does not translate any of the names and leaves them all in the original form. In contrast, Jana Cahová translates almost all the first names of the characters, or transfers them into Czech with a changed spelling, and also translates one surname and another one is slightly modified. For example, Hausner has George, John, James, Joe, Willie, Nicholas and Dolly, which become in Cahová´s version Jiří, Jan, Jakub, Pepík, Vilda, Mikuláš and Dórinka. Alfred in Hausner is Alfréd with long ”é” in Cahová, and Reuben is in Cahová made into Ruben. Cahová even translates one surname – farmer Thoroughgood becomes in her version Dobrovolný, and she modifies Joe Green´s surname, who then becomes Pepík Greenů. One first name, however, Cahová leaves as it is in the original – Jerry. One reason that could lead Cahová to translate the surname Thoroughgood might have been that it seems to somewhat suggest the character of Mr Thoroughgood and therefore she thought it important to convey that to the readers. In my opinion, this was unnecessary because I think that use of the original name here would not make it less understandable to the readers, and if all the other surnames in the book are English why suddenly use a completely Czech name. There also seems to be a little tension between the Czech names and English surnames. But with regard to the year when the translation was published, i.e., in the 70´s, and maybe also with a view to the young readership, Cahová might have considered it preferable to use the Czech equivalents. I personally prefer Hausner´s treatment of the names, when he keeps the English names which are part of the setting in which the story takes place. However, maybe some of the names could be a slightly modified, such as the name Alfred, which could be spelled with long ”é” since it sounds more natural to the Czech reader but still remains a foreign – like.

Novels and stories in which horses play an important part are popular not only in Britain, where horses and equestrian sports have a long tradition, but also among Czech readers are not unnoticed, and especially among the younger ones. Nowadays they become more popular with horses coming back into fashion. From among the many books about horses I read when I was a teenager, besides Black Beauty, I especially liked one novel which in some ways reminds of Black Beauty and that is ”Baba” by Václav Prokůpek. I have chosen this book in order to compare the English story about horses with a Czech novel dealing with the same topic and to show some similarities that appear there.

Sewell, Anna: Black Beauty. Wordsworth Editions Ltd, Hertfordshire. 1993.

Sewellová, Anna: Černý krasavec. Translated by Cahová, Jana. Svoboda, Praha. 1972.

Sewell, Anna: Black Beauty. Retold by Evans, Betty and Daly, Audrey. Ladybird Books Ltd,

Knižní Klub, Praha. 1997.

Prokůpek, Václav: Baba. Mladá fronta, Praha, 8^th edition. 1971.