譯/陳韋廷
紐約市圖擴充吳爾芙主題館藏
In 1907, Virginia Woolf sent her sister, Vanessa Bell, a mock proclamation in honor of her wedding, written by an imaginary bestiary of well-wishers named Billy, Bartholomew, Mungo and Wombat.
1907年,維吉尼亞.吳爾芙送給胞姐凡妮莎.貝爾一份紀念她婚禮的打油啟事,發文者是名為比利、巴薩羅謬、蒙戈和翁巴特(袋熊) 的虛構寓言動物。
"We the undersigned three Apes and a Wombat wish to make known to you our great grief and joy at the news you intend to marry," they wrote, before going on to celebrate the discovery of a new kind of ape "who can both talk and marry you."
牠們寫道:「簽名於後的我們這三隻猿猴和一隻袋熊,想要對您打算結婚的消息深致悲傷和喜悅之情,」並接著慶賀發現了一種「能說話並娶妳」的新猿類。
"We have examined his fur and find it of fine quality, red and golden at the tips, with an undergrowth of soft down, excellent for winter," they declared. "We find him clean, merry and sagacious, a wasteful eater and fond of fossils."
牠們宣稱:「我們檢查了牠的皮毛並發現質地良好,毛端呈紅色與金色,下層生有軟絨,極宜過冬。我們發現他乾淨、快樂和聰明,是浪費食物的人並喜歡化石。」
The letter is part of a private collection of 153 Woolf-related items assembled over several decades by collector William Beekman. Now, it has landed at the New York Public Library, where it will join some 3,700 other Woolf materials in the library's Berg Collection of English and American Literature.
這封信原屬收藏家威廉·比克曼,是他數十年來153件跟吳爾芙有關私人收藏品中的一件。現在,它已歸屬紐約公共圖書館,將加入該館伯格英美文學館另外3700件左右吳爾芙資料的行列。
Carolyn Vega, the curator at the Berg, called the acquisition a milestone, if not quite a capstone, which gives the library plausible bragging rights to having the world's most complete and important collection of Woolf materials.
伯格英美文學館館長卡洛琳.維加表示,此一收購即使不能完全稱為合頂石,也具里程碑意義,讓圖書館足以誇稱擁有世上最完整與最重要的吳爾芙資料收藏。
"At about 150 pieces, it isn't giant," she said of the newly acquired trove. "But there is something unique or exceptional about everything in the collection. There is no filler here."
她談到新收購的藏品時說:「約有150件,不算太多,但件件都有獨特不凡之處,沒有一件是拿來充數的。」
The library's Woolf collection began in 1958, when it acquired her diaries directly from her husband, Leonard. Today, it includes draft materials of all her works of fiction, as well as some 3,000 pieces of correspondence.
該館的吳爾芙收藏始於1958年,當時直接從她的丈夫李歐納德處取得她的日記。時至今日,已藏有它她所有小說作品的原稿,以及約3000封信。
The new acquisition, whose price the library is not disclosing, adds roughly 100 letters to that count, including eight from Leonard and Vanessa to Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's friend and sometime lover, regarding her disappearance and suicide on March 28, 1941. (Not all of those letters have been fully published, Vega said.)
這次未透露價格的新收購,約使圖書館增加了100封信,包括李歐納德跟凡妮莎所寫,寄給吳爾芙的朋友且曾為其情人的薇塔·薩維爾威斯特的8封信,談到有關她的失蹤以及1941年3月28日的自殺。(維加表示,並非所有信件都已完整發表。)
There are also previously unpublished photographs and ephemera, like Woolf's passport, and first editions of her books, some of them inscribed to friends and family.
另外還有未曾發表過的照片,吳爾芙的護照等僅供一時所需的物件,以及她的初版作品,其中有些題贈給親友。
The Berg already owns the walking stick Woolf carried the day she drowned, which it acquired in 2002. But the new material also includes records of lighthearted moments, like an unpublished photograph showing a smiling Woolf and her brother-in-law, Clive Bell, on a beach in 1910.
伯格英美文學館已擁有吳爾芙溺死當天所持拐杖,於2002年取得。而新資料還包括輕鬆時刻的記錄,像是一張吳爾芙跟姐夫克萊夫.貝爾1910年在海灘上留下的微笑照片。
"It shows a side of her we don't necessarily first go to, when we think of this great modernist writer," Vega said. "It brings out a dynamic picture of who Virginia Woolf was."
維加說:「它展示另一面向,這是我們想到這位偉大現代主義作家時,未必會立刻浮現的,展示了維吉尼亞.吳爾芙的動態樣貌。」
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