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Please recommend a version of Swiss Family Robinson


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I picked this book up at the library and started reading it to my kids. I thought it was stupid. It seemed dumbed down to me. I just couldn't imagine it being a classic like Treasure Island which was so good.

 

I am thinking it must be the version I have. Also, what about Gulliver's Travels. Which version?

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I LOVED that book in high school. It has been years since I read it, but I remember it being fascinating. All the science and nature information the father had allowed them to survive and thrive on the island. Also, as I recall they saved many books from the shipwreck and used them. I recall is was anything but dumbed down! Makes we want to find a copy and read it again :001_smile: I recommend the original, unabridged version.

 

Mary

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We really like the Illustrated Junior Library series of classics published by Grosset & Dunlap. They're all unabridged classics, hard-cover, nice paper, three or four color illustrations/book, several black & white illustrations.

 

We read Swiss Family Robinson aloud last summer and we all enjoyed it!

 

http://tinyurl.com/Swiss-Family-Robinson

 

or isbn: 0448032619

 

yvonne

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I got half way through the book and found this on line http://librivox.org/the-swiss-family-robinson-by-johann-david-wyss/ . I was then able to listen to it read while I did my 7 hours a week driving job. It's unabridged yet different from the unabridged one I was reading. I read something about different versions being translated by different people.

 

The reader was a volunteer so it's not professionally dramatic, but I was captivated by the story itself.

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We really like the Illustrated Junior Library series of classics published by Grosset & Dunlap. They're all unabridged classics, hard-cover, nice paper, three or four color illustrations/book, several black & white illustrations.

 

We read Swiss Family Robinson aloud last summer and we all enjoyed it!

 

http://tinyurl.com/Swiss-Family-Robinson

 

or isbn: 0448032619

 

yvonne

 

Are you sure this is the version you read? The description of it says that it is abridged.

 

 

This is the version we have. It is unabridged, but I was very frustrated with the amount of typos. :glare:

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Are you sure this is the version you read? The description of it says that it is abridged.

 

Hm. The description does say that, but that is definitely the version we read & we definitely enjoyed it! :) In the book it says it was "Edited by ... " I wonder to what extent....

 

We have many of the Junior Illustrated Library books & I still absolutely recommend them! Books of Wonder versions of the classics are also nice.

 

yvonne

 

ETA: The original text by Wyss was in German, so all English versions are translations. The Junior Ill'd Library edition is edited by Kingston. Here's what I found on wikipedia...

 

"Over the years there have been many versions of the story with episodes added, changed or deleted. Perhaps the most well known English version is by William H. G. Kingston first published in 1879. It is based on Isabelle de Montolieu's 1824 French adaptation Le Robinson suisse, ou, Journal d'un père de famille, naufragé avec ses enfans in which were added further adventures of Fritz, Franz, Ernest and Jack. Other English editions which claim to include the whole of the Wyss-Montolieu narrative are by W. H. Davenport Adams (1869-10) and Mrs H. B. Paull (1879). As Carpenter and Prichard write in The Oxford Companon to Children's Literature (Oxford, 1995), "with all the expansions and contractions over the past two centuries (this includes a long history of abridgments, condensations, Christianizing, and Disney products), Wyss's original narrative has long since been obscured." The closest English translation to the original is William Godwin's 1816 translation, reprinted by Penguin Classics."

Edited by yvonne
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