Translations in periodicals met with much greater success, albeit not initially. Again, Philibert opens the ball as publisher. The story of ‘The Good Mother’ (
Suite, 1761) is the first complete translation of a Marmontel story into Danish. It was presented in 1770 to readers of
Den danske Oversættere, eller Samling af valgte moralske Afhandlinger, oversat af fremmede Sprog [The Danish translator, or collection of selected moral essays, translated from foreign languages], a periodical for young people. The essays and stories came predominately from English and German moral weeklies. The second issue provides ‘Den gode Moder, En Fortælning. Contes moraux de Marmontel’ to an exclusive circle of readers. The list of subscribers never surpassed 54, most of whom belonged to the upper social circles of Copenhagen. As always with Philibert, it is an expensive publication in roman type. He soon had to reduce the price following complaints.
1 Note at the end of no. 7 of Den danske Oversættere (1770), p. 112. List of subscribers bound after the title page. Issue no. 2 is dated 5 May 1770.The periodical ends after five months with the editor/translator Carl Fr. Hellfriedt musing over its lack of success: is Danish taste less polished than abroad, or do Danes prefer the original in order to learn languages? Do young people not have fifteen minutes for morals, only masquerades? Whatever the readers might have replied, Hellfriedt certainly was ahead of his time in specifically adapting Marmontel’s stories to their future readers: the young. The entire industry of moral tales for children, which flourished for generations to come, were indebted to Contes moraux, and the collection itself was increasingly marketed to children. Moreover, periodicals were to be the only media for Contes moraux in Danish, returning to a Mercure de France mode of reception, disconnected from the context and sequence of the later oeuvre. Instead, the stories are juxtaposed with their literary ‘ancestors’, the moral tales of weeklies in the Spectator tradition.
During the 1770s the serial publication continues, but still mainly addressed to a general reading public rather than youth in particular. In 1773 ‘Annete and Lubin’ (1761) found its way to
Kiøbenhavns Aften-Post [Copenhagen evening post], perhaps the most popular weekly in every stratum of society. The story was known from Favart’s
opera-comique adaptation, performed in French at The Court Theatre in Copenhagen in 1767.
2 P. Schiønning, Dagbog, 21 March and 25 April 1767. C. Philibert published a French edition (1766) in Copenhagen aimed at theatre audiences (cf. his advertisement in the collection Théatre royal de Dannemarc, vol. 1, 1770). In addition, a translation of the ‘Shepherdess of the Alps’ (1759) was reportedly printed in a periodical before 1774, but it has not been found.
3 According to a critic in Kritisk Tilskuer, no. 7 (1776). However, 1774 saw the beginning of a series of
Contes in the Danish serial publication for short fiction,
Det nye Magazin, indeholdende Fortællinger af adskillige berømte Forfattere [The new magazine, containing stories by several famous authors]. While published serially, it is a multi-volume collection rather than a periodical. Its first title,
Nye historiske Magazin [New historical magazine], labelled the content as ‘histories’, which readers found confusing as ‘history’ implied non-fiction. The title is a nod to a now forgotten periodical,
Det historiske Magazin (1758–62), which printed ‘adventures and stories’, some apparently in the moral and sentimental vein.
4 Det historiske Magazin, (6 vols, Copenhagen, 1758–62). No copy has been found but lists of content and even summaries of stories can be found in Holck’s paper KA following the publication of each issue. The editor/author is unknown. Short prose fiction still remained somewhat unfamiliar, existing outside the classic labels and hierarchies of genres. Interestingly, the editor included some stories in verse, too.
5 Det nye Magazin, Birch’s preface to vol. 1, no. 2 (1774); NKJ, no. 25 (1774), p. 214; Lærde Efterretninger (LE) no. 16 (1776), p. 244. The editor and main translator, the theologian Hans Birch, had established himself as a translator in Copenhagen while he waited for a position as a vicar. During his time with
Det nye Magazin he became a respected literary critic at
Nye Kritisk Tilskuer [New critical spectator] and translated sentimental and moral prose including Gellert, Sterne’s
A Sentimental Journey and Miller’s
Siegwart before his posting as a provincial vicar in late 1778. In addition to several of the
Contes,
Det nye Magazin presents stories by Gellert, d’Arnaud, Wieland, Rowe, Diderot, idylls by Gessner as well as Fielding’s novel
Tom Jones. The latest fashion of sentimental prose had eclipsed the didactic tales of old moral weeklies in the children’s magazines or the topical genres of a newspaper, providing a completely new literary environment for Marmontel’s texts in Danish. Birch also claimed that earlier translations had been ephemera, badly translated and soon forgotten.
6 In vol.1, no. 3, pp. 1–43 and 44–68. NKJ (no. 25, 1774, p. 214) called for Birch to include stories by Marmontel to discourage the translator of ‘Alcibiade’ from continuing his work. Regarding readership, he imagines them as leisure readers vacationing in country houses. The questionable status of prose fiction prompts him to assure them of the virtuous intent and artistic quality of the texts.
7 Preface to Det nye Magazin vol. 1, no. 3 (1775) and preface to Det nyeste Magazin, vol. 1 (1778). A critic, L. Sahl, labels the magazine’s readers ‘youth’ (‘Ungdom’, Min Kritiske Læsning, no. 1 [178?], p. 64). By 1778 Birch turns the
Det nye Magazin into a proper monthly periodical and changes its name to
Det nyeste Magazin af Fortællinger, eller Samling af moralske, rørende og moersomme Romaner og Historier [The newest magazine of stories, or collection of moral, touching, and amusing novels and histories], adding that they are in Danish.
8 Preface to Det nyeste Magazin, vol. 1 (1778). The lack of good short prose fiction is the reason he gives for introducing novels and continuing with stories in verse. The critic in LE (no. 33, 1779, p. 513) calls it ‘this periodical collection’ (‘denne periodiske Samling’).The magazines combined were to include the most comprehensive translation of the
Contes in Danish or Norwegian to this day, with 10 (of 23) stories published between 1774 and 1779.
9 Birch translated seven stories published 1774–8, H. W. Riber one in 1776 and H. C. Amberg two in 1779. The first issue in 1774 begins with ‘The School of Fathers’ (
Suite, 1761). It is soon followed by ‘The Shepherdess of the Alps’ (1759) and ‘The Two Unfortunates’ (1758) in the third issue.
10 Titles in the magazine: ‘Fædrenes Skoele’, ‘Hyrdinden paa Alperne’, ‘De to ulykkelige’, ‘Soliman den Anden’, ‘Lausus og Lydie’. The next two appear in 1776 (vol. 2, nos 1 and 2): ‘Soliman II’ (1756) and ‘Lausus and Lydia’ (1758). The critics were unanimously positive towards Birch’s magazines, his translations and these stories in particular: ‘[Sufficient praise is] they are written by Marmontel and chosen and translated by Birch’.
11 Kritisk Tilskuer, no. 7 (1776); Kritisk Journal no. 29 (1773), NKJ no. 25 (1774), no. 46 (1775) and no. 27 (1776). Quote from NKJ no. 46 (1775), p. 365: ‘[…] til hvis Roes vi ikke behøve at sige andet, end at de ere forfattede af Marmontel, og valgte og oversatte af Birch’. When the magazine was relaunched in 1778 the
Contes continued to appear regularly: ‘The Bad Mother’ (1759) in the first issue is contrasted with ‘The Good Mother’ in the second. ‘Friendship Put to the Test’ (1765), which originally preceded
Bélisaire as an argument for religious tolerance, follows later the same year. All three stories emphasise the importance of love and virtue within a wider context of family and society.
In the preface to the May issue 1779, Birch says goodbye to his around 200 subscribers in five towns.
12 Subscription list for 1778–9 counts 195 people (including 16 women) in six locations in Denmark and two in Norway. He concludes: ‘May Taste, Virtue and Religion reign in Denmark and Norway!’ (While no Norwegians appear on the list, they clearly read the periodical (see below).) These values are reflected in his selection from the
Contes, as he mostly leaves out the earliest stories from
Mercure.
13 Exceptions include ‘Alcibiade’ from the attempted translation of the entire work and ‘Soliman II’, which was immensely popular on the Copenhagen stage from 1770, cf. NKJ, no. 26 (1776). Marmontel scholars have pointed to a noticeable development from the satirical and frivolous love entanglements of the earliest stories to a concern for morals in a more social and political sense in the later ones, fully realised in
Bélisaire.
14 J. Renwick, ‘Jean François Marmontel: The Formative Years 1753–1765’, SVEC no. 76 (Geneva, 1970), p. 191; K. Astbury, The Moral Tale, pp. 33–6. The new editor, H. C. Amberg, followed suit by presenting two of the later love stories: the Clarissa-like story of ‘Laurette’ (1765) and ‘the true story’ of first cousins ‘Annete and Lubin’ (1761). While the latter questions both the laws of society and nature, the first links love to happy family life in the virtuous countryside. There are no new translations of the
Contes for the next five years in Denmark, but Bergen and Norway are to see their second.