Project Feedback: New Romance of the Three Kingdoms Online Novel?

[James]

Another thing I have been pondering is incorporation of media. We can include old illustrations. Or we could even do some new artwork if some in the community were interested and it fit thematically (e.g. maybe more traditional in presentation as opposed to, say, game-like).

I know there are some artists in the community producing lovely work, and it could be fun to consider embedding and linking from/attributing resources some artists may want to extend display permission for this purpose.

Just a fledgling thought. It is a thing which seems like it can be wonderful and tasteful, or over-wrought. Although it could also be tied to a preference option (e.g. display/collapse into a link/hide from presentation).

[TigerTally]

For the biographical texts, I would suggest extracting text from later KOEI RoTK/DW games which have official English translation. I am pretty sure some entries had directly cited information from earlier in-game biographies as well.

For old illustrations, I just happened to find a website called 中国历代人物图像数据库 (Chinese Historical Figures Illustration Database, http://diglweb.zjlib.cn:8081/zjtsg/mingren/index.htm) several days ago. The connection, however, seems very unstable (and right now it seems to not be in working hours). Maybe you need a mainland Chinese IP or wait for GFW loops?

Another famous traditional graphical depiction of the novel is 連環畫 lianhuanhua (http://gsh.yzqz.cn/lianhuanhua/sgyylhh/index.html), but I am not sure if there is still a way to access them online, both legally and stably.

PS: Most RoTK4 images were based on lianhuanhua .

Finally, several older editions of the novel centuries ago had illustrations too. They obviously have no copyright issue and can be found online, but we have to process the images ourselves.

https://www.digital.archives.go.jp/DAS/ ... 0000810/00
http://shanben.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/main_p ... o&no=04514
https://taiwanebook.ncl.edu.tw/zh-tw/se ... asc/grid/1
search for "官板大字全像批評三國志" at http://hong.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index.html


Japanese traditional illustrations:
search for "通俗絵本三国志" or "三国志画伝" at https://dl.ndl.go.jp/

[Sanji Himura]

I'm back again with more thoughts:

A fresh community-driven translation is a very interesting consideration. I'm imagining that it would actually be a very long and deeply involved project. I've seen a couple attempts at it, but not sure how many are still holding steam? Generally speaking, it sounds like the sort of thing I would be happy to build for the community to use and present with, published under CC-BY 3.0 US, but which might not actually accomplish much if I built it without the community interest.

It is also feasible to start with the C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation and actually create a derivative work. Which is to say, it could be used as the base translation, and portions could be edited and re-translated, perhaps not with the goal of replacing everything, but rather "improving" on content based on some interpretation of a goal (e.g. readability). This could also be presented as an option along with the original translation.

I was thinking about how to handle edits. I do want to make sure that is at least supported, because I know there are some edits that ought to be made (some specific errors, some names). So I considered that the basic book could be the original translation (or another baseline if we started with another, such as threekingdoms.com), and "edits" on the basic level could be simple find/replace operations. That way the original text is preserved. But maybe how it is handled programmatically is getting too far into the weeds.

Both ways are certainly viable but was thinking about how well the new translation would be accepted from both an academic and layman's perspective.

While it most certainly takes time, I feel that doing both (fresh translation and editing the old C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation) would be in the site's best interest.

Also, I think that we shouldn't let Brewitt-Taylor's efforts go to waste either. I know that we (in general) have talked about having encyclopedia articles about officers and places pop up when people click on the text, but couldn't we do the same thing in parts of the novel where the reader can reference either the original Chinese or the Taylor translation of the text? For example, having the Brewitt-Taylor translation available for chapter titles and other troublesome errors as something to reference back to and see why we made those edits the way that we did.

[Tao Qian]

I think we should clarify a couple of things.

First, I'm not sure C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain. The fact is not so easy to find the text makes me think so. I've found what can be a hint to why, he died in 1938 but, according to Wikipedia: "a 1959 reprint was published that included maps and an introduction by Roy Andrew Miller ".

Second, maybe the threekingdoms.com page was a complete new translation. As the guys on the mentioned wikisource discussed:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translat ... e_Kingdoms

This actually makes a lot of sense, I've been reading threekingdoms.com since the 2000s, if C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain, the rights expired at 2008-2009, so the whole threekingdoms.com version would have been illegal. At the time, these kind of webpages were usually not surviving for long...

What do you think?

[James]

I think we should clarify a couple of things. [...]

Indeed... and interesting.

I think they looked into the “wrong” thing by comparing the novel opening paragraph, if the goal was to make a comparison. I decided to pluck from Chapter 16 to see what might be seen, and referenced my copy of the C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation (3rd printing published in 1995) against threekingdoms.com and another present source, the one hosted at the Three Kingdoms Fandom Wiki. Here are the texts:

“What is your plan of attack on Liu Pei?” said Shu.
Yang Ta-chiang replied, “Though Liu Pei, now camped at Hsiaop‘ei, could easily be taken, yet Lü Pu is strongly posted at the chief city near, and I think he would help Pei if it was only for the grudge he bears against you for not having given him the gold and stuffs, grain and horses you promised. First of all you should send Lü Pu a present whereby to engage his affections and keep him quiet while you deal with Liu Pei. You can see to Lü Pu after this is done.”

“What is your plan of attack on Liu Bei?” said Yuan Shu.
Yang Dajiang replied, “Though Liu Bei, now camped at Xiaopei, could easily be taken, yet Lü Bu is strongly posted at the chief city near. And I think Lü Bu would help Liu Bei if it was only for the grudge he bears against you for not having given him the gold and studs, grain and horses you promised. First of all you should send Lü Bu a present whereby to engage his affections and keep him quiet while you deal with Liu Bei. You can see to Lü Bu after this is done, and Xuzhou is yours.”

“What is your plan of attack on Liu Bei?” said Yuan Shu.
Yang Dajiang replied, “Though Liu Bei, now camped at Xiaopei, could easily be taken, yet Lu Bu is strongly posted at the chief city near. And I think Lu Bu would help Liu Bei if it was only for the grudge he bears against you for not having given him the gold and studs, grain and horses you promised. First of all you should send Lu Bu a present whereby to engage his affections and keep him quiet while you deal with Liu Bei. You can see to Lu Bu after this is done, and Xuzhou is yours."

These excerpts alone seem interesting to me. It suggests that threekingdoms.com clearly presented a derivative work of some iteration of the C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation (not especially derivative at the point of this sample, but still possibly featuring changes), and the Three Kingdoms Fandom Wiki is presenting its own derivative work of, possibly, what was featured at threekingdoms.com (deviating only in the choice to remove the umlaut from Lü Bu’s name; they, in turn, feature a distinct re-translation of the opening paragraph).

I do not know how to read into it too much more than that as my copy of the novel is the third printing published in 1995, while it seems as though there is a 2002 printing (for example). So maybe the deviations from my book are reflected in the 2002 printing, or my book deviates here from an earlier printing. In any case, the changes to the opening in all there variations are unique works, so it seems each effort, whatever the original source, likely made new contributions.

This does leave some assorted open questions for consideration.

If the threekingdoms.com derivative work was not rooted in public domain work at the time of publishing, I suppose one simple, possible answer is that any possible rights holders simply chose not to be fussed, or were happy for the work to be published. Because, otherwise, one imagines it would have taken little more than a phone call or an email to have the work taken offline (I imagine the hosts of the website, in appreciation of the work, would have respected any rights holder’s position). Or, perhaps, some component of what is discussed in the link you shared (e.g. C.H. Brewitt-Taylor's country at the time of publishing), or the timeline relative to the copyright moving into public domain, was enough to put different considerations into play or to made the work tolerated or appreciated in another context.

I can probably dig up a sufficiently old copy of the novel to shed some more light. My guess, at the moment, is that the text is remaining pretty constant between versions dating back to the older published copies.

I think we do see the two copies are derivative works of the C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation.

[James]

For the biographical texts, I would suggest extracting text from later KOEI RoTK/DW games which have official English translation. I am pretty sure some entries had directly cited information from earlier in-game biographies as well. [...]

Wow! That is a heck of a lot of information, and potentially extremely helpful for this. I’m enjoying browsing some of this just for the sake of appreciating what has been shared, there. So we certainly have some options to explore in locating some old, highly appropriate works, which could be suitable for legal use in this case.

As an aside, seeing some illustrations from the lianhuanhua gave me a moment of appreciation for the animation, Great Conquest: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The way characters are drawn seems to borrow characteristics from old illustrations in a delightful way.

Both ways are certainly viable but was thinking about how well the new translation would be accepted from both an academic and layman's perspective.

While it most certainly takes time, I feel that doing both (fresh translation and editing the old C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation) would be in the site's best interest.

Also, I think that we shouldn't let Brewitt-Taylor's efforts go to waste either. I know that we (in general) have talked about having encyclopedia articles about officers and places pop up when people click on the text, but couldn't we do the same thing in parts of the novel where the reader can reference either the original Chinese or the Taylor translation of the text? For example, having the Brewitt-Taylor translation available for chapter titles and other troublesome errors as something to reference back to and see why we made those edits the way that we did.

Great suggestions, and a lot of food for thought.

Seems (more so now with the discussion above) the starting point we use for the text bears some interest. If we go off an existing source (like threekingdoms.com with permission), we are already starting with a derivative work. But perhaps that is not such a bad thing.

As for a unique translation, I can certainly put the tools and presentation in place. It would then be up to individuals to decide if they wanted to put the time and energy into actually creating the new translation. I am willing to host it, however. I’d have to put some thought into how that would, in turn, integrate with the presentation we are discussing here. I do like the idea of cross-referencing content for something like that. But there would need to be some sort of architecture behind the scenes to keep things relatable (for example, the reason why featuring the Chinese text along with the translation would want the Chinese text to be separated in blocks matched to paragraphs).

[Sanji Himura]

I think we should clarify a couple of things.

First, I'm not sure C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain. The fact is not so easy to find the text makes me think so. I've found what can be a hint to why, he died in 1938 but, according to Wikipedia: "a 1959 reprint was published that included maps and an introduction by Roy Andrew Miller ".

Second, maybe the threekingdoms.com page was a complete new translation. As the guys on the mentioned wikisource discussed:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translat ... e_Kingdoms

This actually makes a lot of sense, I've been reading threekingdoms.com since the 2000s, if C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain, the rights expired at 2008-2009, so the whole threekingdoms.com version would have been illegal. At the time, these kind of webpages were usually not surviving for long...

What do you think?

The Brewitt-Taylor translation was first published in 1925. It would have fallen under Public Domain two years ago (2021) under US copyright law.

That said, the 1959 reprint's copyright only extend to the maps and possibly the introduction by Roy Miller. Any additional printings (like the Amazon printing that I have of Brewitt-Taylor's translation from 2015) only extend to the font face and printing arrangement, not to the actual text itself.

Great suggestions, and a lot of food for thought.

Seems (more so now with the discussion above) the starting point we use for the text bears some interest. If we go off an existing source (like threekingdoms.com with permission), we are already starting with a derivative work. But perhaps that is not such a bad thing.

As for a unique translation, I can certainly put the tools and presentation in place. It would then be up to individuals to decide if they wanted to put the time and energy into actually creating the new translation. I am willing to host it, however. I’d have to put some thought into how that would, in turn, integrate with the presentation we are discussing here. I do like the idea of cross-referencing content for something like that. But there would need to be some sort of architecture behind the scenes to keep things relatable (for example, the reason why featuring the Chinese text along with the translation would want the Chinese text to be separated in blocks matched to paragraphs).

Now granted I am not as smart as some members here as far as the actual history is concerned, but I do know my way around a word processor. If I can be of use, I will.

[Tao Qian]

I think we should clarify a couple of things.

First, I'm not sure C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain. The fact is not so easy to find the text makes me think so. I've found what can be a hint to why, he died in 1938 but, according to Wikipedia: "a 1959 reprint was published that included maps and an introduction by Roy Andrew Miller ".

Second, maybe the threekingdoms.com page was a complete new translation. As the guys on the mentioned wikisource discussed:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translat ... e_Kingdoms

This actually makes a lot of sense, I've been reading threekingdoms.com since the 2000s, if C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain, the rights expired at 2008-2009, so the whole threekingdoms.com version would have been illegal. At the time, these kind of webpages were usually not surviving for long...

What do you think?

The Brewitt-Taylor translation was first published in 1925. It would have fallen under Public Domain two years ago (2021) under US copyright law.

That said, the 1959 reprint's copyright only extend to the maps and possibly the introduction by Roy Miller. Any additional printings (like the Amazon printing that I have of Brewitt-Taylor's translation from 2015) only extend to the font face and printing arrangement, not to the actual text itself.

Hi, after a lot of trial and error with public domains (failing myself a couple of times and seeing a big videogame company totally failing one time) I would say the answer is not so simple. The US law you mention applies to works published in the US, I cannot find when this happened (the 1925 publication was done in Shanghai), the translator was from the United Kingdom and for everything before the 80s the American copyright law is a big mess. I would say I can take the text and publish it on the EU and UK safely, since, as far as I know, rights expired 70 years after the death of the translator in the UK and EU countries signed an agreement for public domain works in its country of origin, that means 2008 or 2009, but I cannot guarentee other countries, especially the US, without further investigation.

What I'm seeing, and the reason of my post, is there are tons of people taking public domain books written in English and publishing them on Amazon, Wikisource, Gutenberg project, etc. For selfish or altruistic reasons, it happens. The original C.H. Brewitt Taylor is not so easy to find for a popular classic translated into English. What I'm usually finding is the threekingdoms.com translation, and that is odd.

[Sun Fin]

Could that not be as simple as the original Brewitt-Taylor translation has the names in the Wade-Giles forms and so people go for the threekingdoms.com version instead?

[TigerTally]

I think we should clarify a couple of things.

First, I'm not sure C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain. The fact is not so easy to find the text makes me think so. I've found what can be a hint to why, he died in 1938 but, according to Wikipedia: "a 1959 reprint was published that included maps and an introduction by Roy Andrew Miller ".

Second, maybe the threekingdoms.com page was a complete new translation. As the guys on the mentioned wikisource discussed:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translat ... e_Kingdoms

This actually makes a lot of sense, I've been reading threekingdoms.com since the 2000s, if C.H. Brewitt-Taylor translation is public domain, the rights expired at 2008-2009, so the whole threekingdoms.com version would have been illegal. At the time, these kind of webpages were usually not surviving for long...

What do you think?

The Brewitt-Taylor translation was first published in 1925. It would have fallen under Public Domain two years ago (2021) under US copyright law.

That said, the 1959 reprint's copyright only extend to the maps and possibly the introduction by Roy Miller. Any additional printings (like the Amazon printing that I have of Brewitt-Taylor's translation from 2015) only extend to the font face and printing arrangement, not to the actual text itself.

Hi, after a lot of trial and error with public domains (failing myself a couple of times and seeing a big videogame company totally failing one time) I would say the answer is not so simple. The US law you mention applies to works published in the US, I cannot find when this happened (the 1925 publication was done in Shanghai), the translator was from the United Kingdom and for everything before the 80s the American copyright law is a big mess. I would say I can take the text and publish it on the EU and UK safely, since, as far as I know, rights expired 70 years after the death of the translator in the UK and EU countries signed an agreement for public domain works in its country of origin, that means 2008 or 2009, but I cannot guarentee other countries, especially the US, without further investigation.

What I'm seeing, and the reason of my post, is there are tons of people taking public domain books written in English and publishing them on Amazon, Wikisource, Gutenberg project, etc. For selfish or altruistic reasons, it happens. The original C.H. Brewitt Taylor is not so easy to find for a popular classic translated into English. What I'm usually finding is the threekingdoms.com translation, and that is odd.

EDIT: I have done some research on its history of publication.

The first edition was published by Kelly & Walsh Ltd in 1925 at Shanghai, then it got a reprint as a so-called "popular edition" in 1929. Kelly & Walsh then moved to Hong Kong in WW2, and was sold to Swindon in 1960s. Swindon closed all physical stores in 2020, but still maintains its online business.

文星書店 (Book World Co) in Taiwan published another edition in 1940 as well, but there is a high chance for it being a pirated copy.

In US, Tuttle published the 1959 edition in Rutland, Vermont. It had at least reached the fifth printing in 1973. (see https://archive.org/details/romanceofth ... 7/mode/1up ) Then in 1999, Heian International published another American edition in Torrance, CA (see https://archive.org/details/romanceofth ... 8/mode/1up ). And in 2002, Tuttle published another "completely reset" edition with a new introduction by Robert Hegel.

PS: Snow Snow N and K. Nguyen seem to be involved with threekingdoms.com, which is based on Brewitt-Taylor's translation (https://lccn.loc.gov/2004540227)