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Since the early 1930s, the history of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in English has been complicated and has been the occasion for controversy. Four full translations were completed before 1945, as well as a number of extracts in newspapers, pamphlets, government documents and unpublished typescripts. Not all of these had official approval from Hitler's publishers, Eher Verlag. Since the war, the 1943 Ralph Manheim translation has been the most commonly published translation, though Manheim later expressed reservations about his translation, and other versions have continued to circulate. Dugdale abridgement Eher Verlag took steps to secure the copyright and trademark rights to Mein Kampf in the United States in 1925 and 1927. In 1928, the literary agency Curtis Brown, Limited secured the assignment for negotiation of translation rights in the United States and Great Britain, and a German copy was picked up by their employee, Cherry Kearton. However, the firm found it difficult to interest publishers in the 782-page book by the leader of what was then an obscure splinter party in Germany. Even after the elections of September 1930, when the Nazi Party became the second largest party in the Reichstag, publishers were cautious about investing in a translation, due to the Great Depression. The same election inspired Blanche Dugdale to urge her husband, E.T.S. Dugdale, to write an abridgement of Mein Kampf. Dugdale began his work on this abridgement in about 1931, but he, too, was unable to find a publisher for it. In early 1933, at the time of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, Dugdale apparently contacted Eher Verlag, who referred him to Kearton, now working for the firm of Hurst and Blackett. The latter firm was in the process of buying the translation rights from Curtis Brown for a sum of £350. Dugdale offered the abridgment to Hurst & Blackett free of charge, with the stipulation that his name not be used for the British edition. Before the book could go to press, however, Hurst and Blackett were visited by Dr. Hans Wilhelm Thost, London correspondent of the Völkischer Beobachter and an active member of the "Nazi organization" in London. Although Eher Verlag was satisfied with Dugdale's abridgement, Thost insisted on taking a copy to Berlin for further censoring and official sanction. The abridgement was finally published in October 1933. Titled My Struggle the book was published as the second number in the Paternoster Library. In the United States, Houghton Mifflin secured the rights to the Dugdale abridgement on 29 July 1933. The only differences between the American and British versions are that the title was translated My Struggle in the UK and My Battle in America; and that Dugdale is credited as translator in the US edition, while the British version withheld his name. The original price was $3.00 (equivalent to $71 in 2023). In January 1937, Houghton Mifflin issued a second edition, the first having sold out. The price was lowered to $2.50 (equivalent to $53 in 2023). The publishers replaced the old dust jacket featuring Hitler giving his salute over a black and white background with a new one with panels of black, red, and yellow and a quotation from Dorothy Thompson. This led to an official protest by the Nazi government, as the black-red-yellow color scheme was emblematic of the liberal German revolutions of 1848–49 and the Weimar Republic, while the Nazis had returned to the black, white, red of the German Empire. Thompson's quotation was also objected to, as she had been expelled from the Reich in 1934 after writing unflattering accounts of Hitler. The affair lasted into March 1937. Houghton Mifflin agreed to change the yellow to white, but it is unknown whether the Dorothy Thompson quotation was ever removed. Sales and royalties The first printing was a deluxe 18-shilling (equivalent to £68 in 2021) book that sold out its 5,000 copies and was never reprinted. The popular edition cost 3s. 6d. (equivalent to £14 in 2021) and each print run was about 1,750 copies. Below is a table of available sales figures of the Dugdale abridgment in the United Kingdom. "On hand" here means on hand at the beginning of the year. The commission was payable to Curtis Brown as literary agent, and the tax to Inland Revenue. In 1938, "slightly over 8,000 were colonial sales". The first printing of the U.S. Dugdale edition was 7,603 copies, of which 290 were given away as complimentary gifts. The royalty on the first printing in the U.S. was 15% or $3,206.45 total. Curtis Brown, literary agent, took 20%, or $641.20 total, and the IRS took $384.75, leaving Eher Verlag $2,180.37 or RM 5,668. The January 1937 second printing yielded gross royalties of $1,311.38. Once the commission to Curtis Brown and corporation taxes were deducted, this left $891.74 or RM2,318.52. There were three separate printings from August 1938 to March 1939, totaling 14,000; sales totals by 31 March 1939, were 10,345. This yielded gross royalties of $3,879.38 and a new of $2,637.98 or RM6,858.74. Translations Murphy translation The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda commissioned James Vincent Murphy, who had been employed to make English translations of Hitler's speeches and other items, to begin an English translation of Mein Kampf in late 1936 and it was finished by the fall of 1937. However, the Propaganda Ministry cancelled the project and sequestered all copies of the manuscript. Murphy was beginning to be seen as "unreliable" by the government and was dismissed from his position at the Ministry. As the international situation worsened in 1938, Murphy sent his wife and children to England to live with her mother. They arrived in Southampton in June, while James finished up the rest of his commissioned translation work in Berlin and came to London in early September. In London, Murphy contacted his literary agent, Robert Somerville, and they found an interested publisher in Heinemann. However, they realized that translation rights in the United Kingdom and its dependencies already belonged to Hurst and Blackett. Furthermore, they did not have a manuscript in hand. So Murphy was convinced to return to Germany to secure both a copy of the manuscript and permission to publish it, but on the date he was scheduled to fly to Berlin, he was denied an entry visa and told he would be wasting his time. Therefore, his wife, Mary, decided to make the trip, finally crossing the Channel on 6 November 1938. In Berlin she was unable to schedule any appointments with the Propaganda Ministry until 10 November. This meant she was in Berlin during the Kristallnacht pogrom of 9 November. The next day she met with Heinrich Bohle at the Propaganda Ministry, but could not get anywhere. She pursued other contacts within the Ministry but came up empty handed. Finally, without any more money and living with her ex-house keeper, she decided to visit one of James' former secretaries whom he had em.... Discover the R De Roussy De Sales popular books. Find the top 100 most popular R De Roussy De Sales books.