The specific and detailed exchanges about the Rosner version establish for the first time the lengths to which New Directions were prepared to go in privately defending their book. MacGregor, who had come to New Directions much later, had probably heard the claim about the Hesses’ approval from Laughlin and went on record with what is almost certainly a wild exaggeration: that the stylistic choices of this translation had the explicit approval of Hermann Hesse himself. A close examination of the correspondence for the relevant period in both New Directions’ Archives and Ninon Hesse’s correspondence in the Siegfried Unseld Archive
1Here I am grateful to the copyright-holder Frau Nikola Kleine-Brüggemann for granting me access to and publication permission for the Ninon Hesse letters. strongly undermine the Hesse-approval claim (plus another strand of the Henry Miller discovery myth). In a letter to James Laughlin in late 1949 Ninon Hesse wrote:
Today I can give you the address of a
Siddhartha translator. Ms. Hilda Rosner translated it without any contact with a publisher and then sent it to us. Naturally we can’t judge the quality of the translation: perhaps you could write to her and proof the manuscript.
2Ninon Hesse to New Directions, November 9, 1949. Ninon Hesse Letters, Siegfried Unseld Archive, Deutches Literaturarchiv, Marbach HS0106 10460 (hereafter cited as Ninon Hesse Letters).Seven months later, Frau Hesse wrote once again to Laughlin: “I am glad that Miss Rosner’s translation is good—my husband and I had no judgement at all.”
3Ninon Hesse to New Directions, August 3, 1950, Ninon Hesse Letters, HS0106 10504. The source of Laughlin’s exaggeration was probably a note left by Hermann Hesse himself, inserted into a letter Ninon sent on September 27, 1951. It reads: “Dear Mr. Laughlin, I would like to add my own greetings to those of my wife. I was really pleased with your edition and hope you will also find lasting joy in it.”
4Hermann Hesse to Laughlin (in letter from Ninon Hesse), September 27, 1951, Ninon Hesse Letters, HS010 610513. Rather than approving of the translation itself, it appears Hesse was referring to New Directions’ handsomely appointed hardback edition. However audacious the exaggeration, likely stemming from Laughlin and taken on trust by MacGregor, it certainly seemed to silence the private critics of Rosner’s translation. But the Ninon Hesse letters certainly support the idea that Rosner had been active in seeking publication for her
Siddhartha.