San-Antonio, Stone Dead (C’est mort et ça ne sait pas),

Translation Cyril Buhler,  Paperback Library, New York, 1970

There is a striking contrast between Georges Simenon’s status as an international bestseller, and his younger contemporary, once friend,  and main challenger in the French market, San-Antonio (aka Frédéric Dard). The latter, with his eponymous character, the Commissaire San-Antonio,  an ironic hardboiled counterpart to Simenon’s Maigret actually far surpassed Maigret in terms of sales in French, yet  is virtually unknown in the English speaking world. Too much of his  idiosyncratic verve seems to get lost in translation.  As American Scholar Susan Dorff once put it, in a survey published in the Armchair Detective,  San-Antonio, the king of the kiosks in France is also one of her best-kept secrets. With over 100 million San Antonios in circulation and 200 different titles, many of them published, at a point, in 600,000 mass-market paperback, this is a vast, and vastly untranslated continent, which English readers could only view from afar, if at all.

Here is a list  of English and US translations, with some images of how the books actually looked like.

 1/ San-Antonio books published in England

San-Antonio,     A night in Boulogne (Du Plomb dans les tripes, translation N.N.)    London,  Harborough, 1954

San-Antonio, Knights of Arabia, Bérurier au sérail (Translation Cyril Buhler),   London,  Duckworth, 1969

Tough Justice (Messieurs les hommes, 1955), Translation Cyril Buhler, Duckworth, London 1967

 

The Strangler (La Fin des haricots), Translation Cyril Buhler, Sphere, London, 1968

 

The sub killers (La Rate au court-bouillon), Translation Cyril Buhler, Michael Joseph, London, 1971

Title              Original        Publisher                             Place           Year           Original        Translator

A night in Boulogne

Du Plomb dans les tripes

Harborough

London

Jan-54

Jan-53

N.N

From A to Z	De ‘A’ jusqu’à ‘Z’	Duckworth	London	Aug-68	Oct-61	Hugh Campbell
Tough justice	Messieurs les hommes	Duckworth	London	Mar-67	Jun-55	Cyril Buhler

The Strangler	La Fin des haricots	Sphere Books	London	Jul-68	May-61	Cyril Buhler
Tough Justice	Messieurs les hommes	Sphere Books	London	May-69	Jun-55	Cyril Buhler
Stone dead	C’est mort et ça ne sait pas	Sphere Books	London	Feb-69	Apr-55	Cyril Buhler
Thugs and bottles	Du brut pour les brutes	Sphere Books	London	Mar-69	Apr-60	Hugh Campbell
Knights of Arabia	Bérurier au sérail	Sphere Books	London	Jul-69	Sep-64	Cyril Buhler
From A to Z	De ‘A’ jusqu’à ‘Z’	Sphere Books	London	Jul-69	Oct-61	Hugh Campbell
Crooks’ hill	Le Gala des emplumés	Sphere Books	London	Sep-69	Oct-63	Barry Jaggers
The sub killers	La Rate au court-bouillon	Michael Joseph	London	Feb-71	Jan-65	Cyril Buhler
Alien Archipelago	L’Archipel des malotrus	Michael Joseph	London	Jan-71	Dec-67	Hugh Campbell

2/ San-Antonio books published in New York

 

The Strangler (La Fin des haricots), Translation Cyril Buhler, Paperback Library, New York, 1970

San-Antonio,    The hatchet man    (Vas-y, Béru), Translation, Hugh Campbell, Paperback Library, New York, 1970

Title                        Original                          Publisher                     Place           Year              Translator

 

Knights of Arabia	Bérurier au sérail	Paperback Library	New York	1969	1964	Cyril Buhler
Stone dead	C’est mort et ça ne sait pas	Paperback Library	New York	1970	1955	Cyril Buhler
From A to Z	De ‘A’ jusqu’à ‘Z’	Paperback Library	New York	1970	1961	Hugh Campbell
Thugs and bottles	Du brut pour les brutes	Paperback Library	New York	1970	1960	Hugh Campbell
The Strangler	La Fin des haricots	Paperback Library	New York	1970	1961	Cyril Buhler
Crooks’ hill	Le Gala des emplumés	Paperback Library	New York	1970	1963	Barry Jaggers
Tough justice	Messieurs les hommes	Norton&Cie	New York	1967	1955	Cyril Buhler
Tough justice	Messieurs les hommes	Paperback Library	New York	1970	1955	Cyril Buhler
The hatchet man	Vas-y, Béru	Paperback Library	New York	1970	1965	Hugh Campbell

3/ Comparing  British and US publications

San-Antonio, The Strangler, London, Sphere, 1968 (paperback) 

 

 

San-Antonio, The Strangler, New York, The Paperback Library, 1970

San-Antonio, The Strangler, London, Sphere, 1968

San-Antonio, The Strangler, New York, The Paperback Library, 1970

4/Promoting San-Antonio in swinging London: The Duckworth blurbs

 

San-Antonio, The Strangler, London, Duckworth, 1967 (Hardback)

From A to Z, London, Duckworth, August 1968  (Hardback)

5/ Inside Alien Archipelago (London, Michael Joseph, 1971)

6/ The Man of the Avenue ( London, Robert Hale, 1973, Hardcover)  by Frédéric Dard.

This is the Author of San-Antonio’s only “novel of the night” translated into English,  prior to the French edition of the Romans de la nuit (Omnibus, 2014)