Open Water Jumping: Clearing Obstacles in the Negotiation of French Rights to The Black Stallion

Abstract

Generations of French readers certainly remember the joy of reading the adventures of Black, the wild stallion tamed by young Alec, between the green covers of Hachette's Bibliothèque verte. One of several juvenile series dedicated to animals pitted as faithful companions for readers coming of age, the Black Stallion series thrilled children over several decades after World War II. Yet few will remember the name of its author, Walter Farley; or imagine the hurdles that Hachette had to painstakingly overcome to obtain the French rights to the series, ultimately turning the volumes into some of the best-selling titles in the Bibliothèque verte. Indeed, while the first two volumes in the series, The Black Stallion and The Black Stallion Returns, were originally published in the United States in 1941 and 1945 respectively, the French translations came out some 15 years later, in 1957, to be subsequently included in the popular Bibliothèque verte only in 1964. This belated publication, especially when contrasted with the publication of the same titles in other European countries, naturally spurs the following question: why did it take so long? 2The answer lies in large part in the transatlantic negotiation of the French rights to these volumes. Based on the study of Farley's correspondence with his US agents, and the latter's correspondence with their French co-agent, Jenny Bradley, this article proposes to shed light on a difficult mediation, viewed from the perspective of publishing history. While the narrative of these negotiations naturally outlines a financial rationale, it also reveals a cultural barrier as US agents, authors and publishers seem to have had difficulty understanding overseas markets in the 1950s. Given that Farley's foreign rights were all marketed by his agents, a cogent question is raised as to whether literary agents were in fact instrumental in either delaying, complexifying or easing negotiations in this particular matter.