"Les Lapins" sur la Carte du Hobbit

[Druss]

Le retour des Lapins (cette remontée de fou). Au détour d'une recherche, je suis tombé sur cette anecdote à propos de la première traduction du Hobbit aux éditions Stock (Reader's Guide, p. 1036) :

On 13 May 1968, André Bay of Editions Stock, who were about to publish a French translation of The Hobbit, wrote to Alina Dadlez that he was unhappy about the word Hobbit, which had unfortunate connotations in French – which, however, he did not dare to explain to a woman. He suggested Hopin instead. When this was put to Tolkien he replied: 'I must rely on the objections raised by those who know more of the depths of the colloquial language! Anyway hopin seems to me a suitable and ingenious solution: hopin/lapin = hobbit/rabbit, I suppose. Not that I intended such a connexion … So hopin let it be: as long as any illustrator is aware that it should not influence him unduly' (15 May 1968, Tolkien-George Allen & Unwin archive, HarperCollins). In the end the French translation also used the form hobbit.

On a échappé de peu à Bilbo le Hopin !