הדורבן | The Porcupine (Zmora-Bitan, 1992; Hebrew)


Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. הדורבן | The Porcupine. Tel-Aviv: Zmora-Bitan, 1992. Pp. 143 + [1]. 21 x 13.5 cm. Translated by אלי שרייבר (Eli Shraiber). (Hebrew).

Pinnsvinet | The Porcupine (Aschehoug, 1994; Norwegian)


Notes on this edition: Julian Barnes. Pinnsvinet | The Porcupine. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1994. Pp. 103 + [5]. 21.5 x 14 cm. Translated by Knut Ofstad. ISBN: 8203200079. (Norwegian).

The Porcupine (Jonathan Cape, 1992)


Notes on this edition: Because Jonathan Cape published Julian Barnes’s novel The Porcupine after Obsidian Press published the Bulgarian translation, this edition is listed as the “First British Edition”.

Descriptive Bibliography: First British edition – London: Jonathan Cape, 1992. £9.99.

Title Page: THE PORCUPINE | JULIAN BARNES | [Jonathan Cape device] | JONATHAN CAPE | LONDON

Copyright Page: First published 1992 | © Julian Barnes 1992 | Jonathan Cape, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA | Julian Barnes has asserted his right | under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 | to be identified as the author of this work | A CIP catalogue record for this book | is available from the British Library | ISBN 0-224-03618-1 | Printed in Great Britain by | Mackays of Chatham PLC, Chatham, Kent

Collation: 20.2 x 13.9 cm. Pp. [i-vi] 1-138. [i]: ‘THE PORCUPINE’. [ii]: ‘by the same author | METROLAND | BEFORE SHE MET ME | FLAUBERT’S PARROT | STARING AT THE SUN | A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 10½ CHAPTERS | TALKING IT OVER’. [iii]: title page. [iv]: copyright page. [v]: ‘to Dimitrina’. [vi]: blank. 1-138: text.

General description: Binding 20.9 x 14 cm. Burgundy boards, gold blocked on spine. Sky blue endpapers. Burgundy dust jacket lettered in white (author) and sky blue (title). Color photograph of man carrying an umbrella on upper panel. Image is reproduced in smaller dimensions on lower panel.  Jacket photo by Akira Nagamatsu with design by Peter Dyer. White jacket flaps lettered in black. Author photograph by Jillian Edelstein on back flap.

Бодливо свинче (Bodlivo svinche) | The Porcupine (Obsidian Press, 1992; Bulgarian)


Notes on this edition: Obsidian Press published the Bulgarian translation of Julian Barnes’s novel The Porcupine prior to Jonathan Cape’s U.K. edition, thus making it officially the true first edition of the novel.

While in Bulgaria to promote the translation of Flaubert’s Parrot, Barnes met his translator Dimitrina Kondeva, and they soon built a friendship. Barnes wrote to Kondeva for feedback and insights into a new novel he was writing, The Porcupine, which centered on a fictional country similar to Bulgaria. In addition to translating The Porcupine, Kondeva later became Barnes’s Bulgarian publisher at Obsidian Press. She describes and republishes much of her correspondence with Barnes in the collection Julian Barnes: Contemporary Critical Perspectives. [Kondeva, Dimitrina. “The Story of Julian Barnes’s The Porcupine: An Epistolary ½ Chapter.” Eds. Sebastian Groes and Peter Childs. Continuum, 2011. pp. 81-91.]

Barnes scholar Vanessa Guignery has written an insightful account of Barnes’s development of The Porcupine based on an analysis of his correspondence with Kondeva. [Guignery, Vanessa. “Untangling the Intertwined Threads of Fiction and Reality in The Porcupine (1992) by Julian Barnes.” in Pre and Post-publication Itineraries of the Contemporary Novel in English. Publibook, 2007: 49-71.]

Descriptive Bibliography: Бодливо свинче. софия: обсидиан, 1992. (Bodlivo svinche. Sofia: Obsidian Press, 1992). Translated by Dimitrina Kondeva. ISBN: 954-8240-01-7

Title page: Джулиан Барнс | Бодливо | свинче | превод от английски | Димитрина Кондева | издателство | обсидиан | софия | 1992

Copyright page: JULIAN BARNES | THE PORCUPINE | © Julian Barnes 1992 | First published in Bulgaria 1992 | by Obsidian Press, Sofia | [rule] | Превод © Димитрина Кондева | Худ. Оформление © Hиколай Пекарев | ISBN 954-8240-01-7

Collation: Pp. [1-6] 7-17 [18-19] 20-21 [22-23] 24-25 [26-27] 28-29 [30-31] 32-127 [128]. [1]: ‘Джулиан | Барнс | Бодливо | свинче | обсидиан’. [2]: blank. [3]: title page. [4]: copyright page. [5]: ‘Hа Димитрина’. [6]: blank. 7-8: introduction. 9-127: text. [128]: ‘Джулиан Барнс | Бодливо свинче | Английска | [additional text in Cyrillic, as pictured above]’.