Robert André Edouard Baldick, FRSL (9 November 1927 – April 1972), [1] was a British scholar of French literature, writer, translator and joint editor of the Penguin Classics series with Betty Radice. He was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford.
He wrote eight books including biographies of Joris-Karl Huysmans, Frédérick Lemaître and Henry Murger and a history of the Siege of Paris. In addition he edited and translated The Goncourt Journals and other classics of French literature including works by Gustave Flaubert, Chateaubriand, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jules Verne, and Henri Barbusse, as well as a number of novels by Georges Simenon.
His sons are Julian Baldick, an author specialising in Sufism, and English academic Chris Baldick.
Selected bibliography
- The Life of Joris Karl Huysmans. (Oxford University Press, 1955; new edition revised by Brendan King, Dedalus Books 2006)
- Dinner at Magny's (Victor Gollancz, 1971) [2]
- The Life and Times of Frédérick Lemaître: Actor, Lover and Idol of Paris (Hamish Hamilton, 1959)
- Against Nature (Penguin Classics) by Joris-Karl Huysmans (translator; Penguin, 1959)
- The Goncourts (Bowes and Bowes, 1960)
- The First Bohemian: The Life of Henry Murger (Hamish Hamilton, 1961)
- The Memoirs of Chateaubriand (editor & translator; Hamish Hamilton, 1961)
- Three Tales (Penguin Classics) by Gustave Flaubert (translator; Penguin, 1961)
- Pages from the Goncourt Journal (editor & translator; Oxford University Press, 1962 & The Folio Society, 1980)
- Centuries of Childhood by Philippe Aries (translator; Jonathan Cape, 1962)
- Cruel Tales (Oxford Library of French Classics) by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (translator; Oxford University Press, 1963)
- The Battle of Dienbienphu by Jules Roy (translator; Harper Row, 1963)
- The Siege of Paris (Batsford, 1964)
- Sentimental Education (Penguin Classics) by Gustave Flaubert (translator; Penguin, 1964)
- The Duel: A History of Duelling (Chapman and Hall, 1965)
- Nausea (Penguin Modern Classics) by Jean-Paul Sartre (translator; Penguin, 1965)
- Hell by Henri Barbusse (translator; Chapman & Hall, 1966)
- The Trial of Marshal Pétain by Jules Roy (translator; Faber, 1968)
- Around the Moon by Jules Verne (translator; J. M. Dent & Sons, 1970)
- Dreamers of Decadence: Symbolist Painters of the 1890s by Philippe Jullian (translator; Pall Mall Press, 1971)
- Aphrodite by Pierre Louÿs (translator; Panther, 1972) [3]
See also
- Translated Penguin Book - at Penguin First Editions reference site of early first edition Penguin Books.
Footnotes
- ^ O'Driscoll, Kieran (2011), Retranslation Through the Centuries: Jules Verne in English, Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 151–152
- ^ Biographical detail taken from a copy Dinner at Magny's, published by Gollancz in 1971
- ^ London: Panther. ISBN 0-586-03517-6.
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- 1927 births
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- Fellows of Pembroke College, Oxford
- Jules Verne
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