This research project, under the sponsorship of the National Science Council, is going to translate into Chinese the renowned classical American text of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with detailed annotations and critical introduction, so as to help Chinese readers to know it better in terms of its cultural background, humorous feature, and satiric intention. This annotated translation will base on a new edition of the book compiled according to the first half of manuscript recently discovered in 1990, with the reinstated 15 pages deleted by its first publisher in 1885. This edition claims to be “the only authoritative text based on the complete original manuscript with all the original illustrations.” There have existed several Chinese versions of the book, but they are mostly uneven in style, sometimes failing to express the full flavor of the book, and needing more annotations. The situation necessitates extensive modification. This proposed new translation hopes to become a variorum annotated edition, with reference to different interpretations from various new and old editions. The proposed translator has been teaching the text for many years to Chinese students and whose MA thesis focused on this text.
