Publishing · Terminology · Taiwan · Comparison Briefeditions of 1997 to 2024 · record to March 2024
A copyright lapsed, and a naming argument began
Two Ways to Name Rivendell
Taiwan has had a Chinese Lord of the Rings since December 1997, and in March 2024 it acquired its fifth. The two editions readers actually argue about are 朱學恆’s, published by 聯經出版 alongside the first film, and 李函’s, published by 雙囍出版 twenty-three years later. The distance between them is not skill. It is a rule about what to do with a name.
What Happened
Five editions, two publishers, and one expiry date What the published record establishes, and how firmly.
- 5Traditional Chinese editions since 1997
- 23years between the two under comparison
- NT$5mpassed by the new edition’s campaign
- 70years since the 1954 publication
The record, sorted by how well it is established Claims made by one translator about another’s work are held back to the argument, below.
| Standing | What the record says | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Confirmed | 朱學恆’s translation was published by 聯經出版 in 2001, as the first film opened in Taiwan, and is the version most Taiwanese readers know. | 中央社, 19 March 2024; BIOS monthly, 11 March 2024 |
| Confirmed | The same translation was reissued by 聯經 as a 全新修訂譯本 — a fully revised edition — catalogued at 2012, 626 pages, ISBN 9789570841008. So the comparison is not simply 2001 against 2024. | Open Library, ISBN 9789570841008 |
| Confirmed | 李函’s translation was published by 雙囍出版 in March 2024. The publisher began preparing it in 2022, and its editor-in-chief raised the project with the translator in July 2022. | Openbook 閱讀誌, 7 February 2024 |
| Confirmed | The second translation was possible because the work entered the public domain. Tolkien died in 1973; by the rule a rights agent states in the reporting, a work becomes freely translatable fifty years after its author’s death. | Openbook, 7 February 2024; 譚光磊 in 中央社 |
| Confirmed | The new edition’s crowdfunding campaign passed NT$5,000,000, timed to the seventieth anniversary of the 1954 publication. | 中央社, 19 March 2024 |
| Confirmed | Taiwan’s first Chinese edition was neither of these: 萬象圖書 published 《魔戒之主》 in December 1997, translated by 海舟, running to 15 volumes with the prequel. | BIOS monthly, 11 March 2024 |
| Confirmed | 聯經 had already published a six-volume 《魔戒》 in 1998, three years before the one it is known for. The retrospective calls its quality 「糟糕到成為另類的奇幻邪典」 — bad enough to become a cult object. | BIOS monthly, 11 March 2024 |
| Confirmed | A further new series was announced later in 2024, by 本事出版 with translator 鄧嘉宛, whose earlier simplified-Chinese version already had readers in Taiwan. | BIOS monthly; 中央社 |
| Confirmed, not verifiable here | The 2024 edition’s ISBN, price and exact publication day. Both publishers render those fields with script, and five retail and magazine sites refuse this environment outright, so only the month is carried here — and three sources agree on it. | Publishers’ own pages; retailers return HTTP 403 |
| Unconfirmed | Whether 萬象圖書 ever held a licence for the 1997 edition. The retrospective calls it 「至今仍是問號」 — still a question mark — and this page claims nothing either way. | BIOS monthly, 11 March 2024 |
| Unconfirmed | Who 海舟 was. The retrospective reports that searching for the translator of 《魔戒之主》 turns up no other lead, and the translator of 聯經’s 1998 edition is not named at all. | BIOS monthly, 11 March 2024 |
Timeline
Twenty-six years, five editions Publications and announcements, dated as their own records date them.
- 1954The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers are published. Seventy years later, that anniversary is what the 2024 launch is timed to.
- 1973Tolkien dies. The fifty-year clock that produces the 2024 editions starts here.
- December 1997萬象圖書 publishes 《魔戒之主》, translated by 海舟 — Taiwan’s first, in 15 volumes with the prequel. Its elves are 「小精靈」, little sprites.
- 1998聯經出版 publishes a competing six-volume 《魔戒》. The retrospective is blunt about its quality.
- 2001The first film opens in Taiwan and 聯經 publishes 朱學恆’s translation. Novel and film reinforce each other; this becomes the version Taiwan quotes.
- 2012聯經 reissues the same translation as a fully revised edition, catalogued at 626 pages.
- July 2022雙囍出版’s editor-in-chief, looking for the next public-domain project after a Lovecraft trilogy, raises 《魔戒》 with 李函. Planning starts.
- 7 February 2024Openbook publishes a pre-launch interview in which 李函 sets out his standard and names Rivendell as his example.
- March 2024雙囍出版 publishes 李函’s translation. No source read here gives the day.
- 11 March 2024BIOS monthly looks back at the 1997 edition, and sets out the whole chain of Taiwanese translations.
- 19 March 2024中央社 reports the campaign past NT$5,000,000 and, in its own headline, that old and new versions each have their partisans.
- 2024本事出版 announces a further new series with 鄧嘉宛. Three Traditional Chinese Lord of the Rings are now in play at once.
What cannot be dated. No source read here gives the day in March 2024 that 李函’s edition went on sale, and the 聯經 revision is established only to the year. 海舟 has a December 1997 translation and, on the retrospective’s own search, no other trace at all — not a date this page could place, but a person it could not.
- 26years from the first Chinese edition to the newest
- 1translator with one credit and no other trace
The Argument
A rule about names, stated by the man who applied it Every claim about the older translation below is the newer translator’s, and is attributed to him.
李函 stated his standard before the book appeared, in an interview published by Openbook in February 2024: 「主要還是以托爾金的譯名指南、附錄、書信和其他書籍中的譯名準則來處理。」 — the work is done from Tolkien’s own guide to the names, the appendices, the letters, and the naming standards in his other books. The publisher put the same thing on the record as the edition’s selling point: 「台灣首次遵從『托爾金翻譯原則』的譯名詮釋」, the first time in Taiwan that renderings follow those principles.
- 裂谷the 2024 rendering of Rivendell, translated for sense
- 瑞文戴爾the 2001 rendering, transliterated by sound
The concrete case is his own. 李函 says of the older edition: 「朱版有許多譯名與托爾金要求的方向恰好相反，該音譯的詞彙採取意譯，或者該意譯的字使用音譯（如將該使用意譯的「裂谷（Rivendell）」譯為「瑞文戴爾」）。」 The charge is not that names were rendered badly but that they were rendered the wrong way round — words wanting sense got sound, words wanting sound got sense. Rivendell is a compound that means something; 瑞文戴爾 (ruì-wén-dài-ěr) is four characters chosen to sound like the English, and 裂谷 is two that mean cleft valley. And in the same breath he says the new version keeps what was already right: 「朱版中意義無誤的譯名有些會予以保留。」
Then the passage that decides how this comparison should end, because it comes from the competing translator: 「朱版確實有不少漏譯、錯譯或較為超譯的描述，但有鑑於當時的時代背景（網際網路尚未發達與電影上映時的截稿要求），加上前譯者可能無法取得托爾金的其他書籍或相關資料，因此可能無法在舊版中有效地完整呈現托爾金的原意。但朱版的譯文確實也讓當年的大量讀者稍微一窺《魔戒》文本的內容。」 Omissions, mistranslations and over-free passages — and then two named conditions that excuse them, an undeveloped internet and a deadline tied to the film’s release, plus the likelihood that the earlier translator simply could not get Tolkien’s other books. And a closing concession: that translation is what let a large readership see the text at all.
So the difference is a policy, and this page reads it as one. The 2001 edition was made for a reader walking out of a cinema, against a deadline, without the reference shelf; the 2024 edition was made for Tolkien’s stated intent, with twenty months’ preparation and the letters to hand. Both are coherent objectives and they produce different books — that reading is this report’s, and no source states it. One correction to the framing, though, is not a reading but a fact: 聯經 reissued 朱學恆’s translation as a fully revised edition in 2012, so “2001 against 2024” is out by eleven years on one side.
The two policies, side by side Each cell is sourced. Where only one edition’s practice is on the record, the other cell says so.
| 朱學恆 / 聯經, 2001, revised 2012 | 李函 / 雙囍, 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Rivendell | 瑞文戴爾 — four characters chosen for sound | 裂谷 — two characters meaning cleft valley |
| Standard followed | None is stated in the sources read here | Tolkien’s guide to the names, the appendices, the letters, and his other books |
| Conditions of work | An undeveloped internet and a deadline set by the film’s release — as characterised by the later translator | Twenty months from first approach to publication, with Tolkien’s other works available |
| What carries over | The names Taiwan has quoted for over twenty years | Renderings from the older edition that are correct in meaning are kept |
What Others Add
A first edition nobody remembers, and a clock nobody set Four things that come from outside the two editions under comparison.
1997
What a naming policy costs, shown by the first attempt
- 海舟’s 《魔戒之主》 rendered elf as 「小精靈」 — little sprite — throughout
- The consequence is in the text: 「站在弗羅多旁邊的小精靈夫人顯得又高又蒼白」 — a little sprite who has to be described as tall
- The register was wuxia: Rosie Cotton became 「金莓娘子」, sons were 「公子」, masters 「主子」 — the publisher had put out 古龍 and 黃易 in the 1990s
- Whether the edition was licensed at all is 「至今仍是問號」, and the translator leaves no other trace
The mechanism
The argument was scheduled, not provoked
- “Fifty years after the author’s death a work becomes a 公版書, its copyright passing into the public domain, which means anyone may translate, publish or adapt it for themselves.” — 「在作者逝世50年後，作品會成為版權歸入公共領域的『公版書』，意即任何人都能自行翻譯、出版或改編。」
- Before that, a work can be licensed to one publisher at a time — which is why twenty-three years passed with one Taiwanese version in the shops
- He puts the general case at about a decade: usage moves, so a classic may need retranslating roughly every ten years
- On his own understanding — 「據了解」, and the hedge is his — China alone would see more than twenty new translations in 2024
1998
聯經 had already tried once, and it went badly
- A six-volume 《魔戒》 in 1998, published to compete with the 萬象 edition
- Its quality is described as 「糟糕到成為另類的奇幻邪典」 — bad enough to become a cult object in its own right
- The translator is not named in the source, and this page does not name one
- So the 2001 edition was 聯經’s second attempt at the same book, three years after the first
Further reading
The line-by-line comparisons are elsewhere
- Both 中央社 and Openbook report that readers compared 「李版」、「朱版」 and 「鄧版」 passage by passage, and that opinion divided
- A working translator’s side-by-side ran at 關鍵評論網, and a reader’s letter, 「誰背叛了托爾金？」, at 獨立評論
- Neither could be read for this page, so neither is summarised here and no view is attributed to either
- Naming them is the honest alternative to characterising arguments this page has not seen
Conclusion
Which one you want depends on what you want it for Both are in print. Neither is the answer to the other’s question.
朱學恆 / 聯經
For the reader who wants the version Taiwan quotes
- Best at: being the shared reference. Twenty-three years of Taiwanese conversation about this book used these names, and 瑞文戴爾 is what a search or a friend will hand you
- Also best at: reading alongside the films, which it was published to accompany and whose names it matches
- The trade-off, in the later translator’s words: omissions, mistranslations and over-free passages, which he attributes to the deadline and the reference material available in 2001
- And its own witness: the same translator says this version is what let a large readership see the text at all
李函 / 雙囍
For the reader who wants Tolkien’s own intent on the names
- Best at: the naming standard. It is the first Taiwanese edition to work from Tolkien’s guide to the names, the appendices and the letters, so 裂谷 means what Rivendell means
- Also best at: the wider legendarium. Its translator worked with Tolkien’s other books to hand, which the source says is necessary because the world was not built inside this novel alone
- The trade-off, and its own translator names it: Taiwanese readers are used to the old names, and this edition changes them
- Not a clean break: renderings from the older edition that are correct in meaning are deliberately kept
The expiry did the arguing
Nothing about the 2001 translation changed in 2024. What changed was that it stopped being the only one allowed — a work can be licensed to one publisher at a time, and fifty years after an author’s death that constraint lifts. On this report’s reading, that makes the comparison scheduled rather than provoked, and it is why three Traditional Chinese editions arrived within a year of each other rather than across a decade.
The fairest thing said here was said by the rival
The new translator listed the old edition’s faults, then named two conditions that excuse them and closed by crediting it with putting the text in front of a large readership. This report treats that as the best available evidence about the older edition’s standing — better than any reader poll, because it comes from the person with the least reason to offer it.
What to hold loosely
This page compares policies and conditions, not prose, and it says so. The two most detailed line-by-line comparisons could not be read for it, no ISBN or price was obtainable for the 2024 edition, and every criticism of the 2001 edition here is one translator’s characterisation of another’s work rather than an independent audit. A reader who wants the sentences judged should read the two pieces named above, and then the openings of both editions.