‘Seize Him by the Collar and Take Him to Gaol!’
OHNET, Georges; Lady GODOLPHIN OSBORNE, translator.
The Battles of Life. The Ironmaster. From the French of Georges Ohnet … by Lady G[odolphin] O[sborne]. Authorized Translation … London, Wyman & Sons … 1884.
Three volumes, 8vo, pp. I: [vi], 255, [1, blank]; II: [iv], 248; III: [iv], 245, [3], with all half-titles; a few small marks; but a very good set, partially uncut, in the original scarlet cloth decorated in black and blind, spines lettered gilt; slightly faded, a couple of wormholes to joints.
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The Battles of Life. The Ironmaster. From the French of Georges Ohnet … by Lady G[odolphin] O[sborne].
First edition in English of this bestselling novel intended for a female readership, translated from the French by Lady William Godolphin Osborne, printed amidst the translator’s contentious copyright lawsuit against the publisher Henry Vizetelly, who had issued a rival translation in the same year.
Le maître de forges (1882), the most popular of a series of novels published by Ohnet under the title ‘Les batailles de la vie’, was a bestseller of French nineteenth-century sentimental fiction, and no less successful in England. ‘The nobly-born heroine [Claire de Baulieu] is jilted by her ducal fiancé and marries the rich ironmaster Philippe Derblay, who has all the virtues except an apostrophe in his name’ (Oxford Companion to French Literature, p. 439). Claire realises her love for Derblay only when he enters into a duel with the duke. The ‘Lady G.O.’ who translated the present edition is thought by Allibone to be Mary Catherine Headley, Lady William Godolphin Osborne (m. 1859), although the translation is elsewhere attributed to Georgiana Augusta Henrietta Godolphin Osborne (née Elphinstone), daughter of Hester ‘Queeney’ Thrale.
Although Lady Osborne had obtained the exclusive rights to translate The Ironmaster and Ohnet’s Countess Sarah into English, unauthorised English translations of both works by Ernest Vizetelly, son of the publisher Henry Vizetelly, would be published a few months later. Osborne sued Vizetelly for infringement, but she was ultimately unsuccessful as her translation of Countess Sarah appeared more than twelve months from the day of registration of the foreign work; Vizetelly continued to advertise his translation despite an injunction, upon discovery of which Lady Osborne exclaimed ‘Seize him by the collar and send him to gaol!’ (Times Law Reports I (1885), p. 18). Although she was able to nullify her agreement with the translator for The Ironmaster, her claim was dismissed with regard to Countess Sarah.
Not in Sadleir; only a yellowback in Wolff (under ‘Hénot’). See Journal du droit international privé et de la jurisprudence comparée 19 (1892), pp. 716–7.