Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the classic Chinese novels, and there have been several translations of it into English. Below I go through each one and note the differences between them, and then I provide an excerpt of the same section from each translation for comparison.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 1925, trans. C.H. Brewitt-Taylor. UNABRIDGED
Supplementary Materials: Introduction by sinologist Robert E. Hegel
Chinese Romanization: Wade-Giles
Current Edition: Tuttle Publishing, 2002, 2 volumes.
Brewitt-Taylor’s translation is the oldest one here and is written in an older, higher-register style. The Wade-Giles romanization of names might be less familiar to younger readers and might be harder to get the hang than the standard pinyin used now. The online version listed below changes the Wade-Giles to pinyin. A decent translation, though there are some mistranslations here and there, such as calling the dagger Wang Yun gives Cao Cao a “sword” (how could he conceal a sword on his person?) and calling it “seven precious” (七寶, the latter word means jewel here, not precious).
Three Kingdoms, 1991, trans. Moss Roberts. UNABRIDGED
Supplementary Materials: Afterword by Moss Roberts, Character list, terms/titles list, ~100 pages of notes, Chronology of main events. FLP edition also has illustrations for each chapter.
Chinese Romanization: Hanyu Pinyin
Current Edition: Univ. of California Press, 2004, 2 volumes.
Foreign Language Press, 1995, 4-volume box set (mass market paperback size). – includes illustrations for each chapter.
Moss Roberts’ translation is about as “definitive” of a translation as you could want, in my opinion. He has more notes than anyone else, including some which offer comments from Mao Zonggang and Mao Lun, the influential Qing dynasty commentators on the novel. Roberts’ translation also follows the original syntax more closely than any of the other translators. For example, in the excerpt below, his is the only translation that briefly hides Cao Cao’s identity as the one who claps until Wang Yun spots him. This is how it is written in Chinese. Those other translators just come right out and name him, spoiling this little bit of mini suspense.
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