[KS] Charles Dallet's Histoire

[Brother Anthony]

Many years ago I was talking with Professor Gari Ledyard about the interest of Dallet's History of the Catholic Church of 1874. We agreed that an English translation was long overdue and he gave me a typescript of a partial translation he had begun, encouraging me to continue. Years have passed, he is no longer with us, and the task of translating / annotating the (Latin) letters of St. Kim Dae-geon and now Father Thomas Choe Yang-eop have encouraged me to return to the charge. A Canadian friend who lived for a time in Korea, David Gemeinhardt, undertook a translation of most of the General Introduction to Korea which begins Volume 1. I then completed that, and annotated it. I have now almost completed the translation of the entire History, which covers the period from the earliest Catholics and the 1784 Baptism as far as the Persecution of 1866 and the French Expedition. Throughout, all Korean names of places, peoples and institutions, and other Korean terms, have been identified and romanized using the current RR (2000) system. In addition, wherever possible the corresponding Sino-Korean characters have been added. Baptismal names are given in their English forms, since the early Korean Catholics used the Chinese forms. The romanizations used by the French missionaries whose texts Dallet was transcribing are extremely opaque, and at times inaccurate. Modern Korean translations have been widely consulted. The complete listings of all major towns and administrative structures for each Province in Section 4, and the detailed analysis of the Korean language prepared by Bishop Ridel to replace that lost in 1866 in Section 7, are of particular interest.

In the coming days I hope to complete the main translations / annotations and put everything online. Needless to say, I would be grateful for indications of error. I make no apology for the use of RR and not M-R, by the way. The entrance is through http://anthony.sogang.ac.kr/Dallet/Index.html  It is hoped that this work might prove useful to those few among us whom do not read French. It is hoped that somehow a printed version might be possible but there is little prospect of that....

Brother Anthony