This paper investigates the reasons behind the tendency toward retranslation in Sinological circles from the 18th to the 20th century, despite the scarcity of translators and the large number of texts available to choose from. Retranslation is taken to mean both translation twice into the same language and translation into a third language (relay translation). My study focuses on just a few cases: The Orphan of Zhao , which was retranslated and adapted numerous times from the 18th century onwards; The Fortunate Union, perhaps the most translated Chinese novel in history (sixteen times); and The Travels of Fa-hsien (399-414 A.D.), or Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms. Examining prefaces and book reviews, as well as the translations themselves, I demonstrate first that retranslation as relay was undertheorized and marks a distinction between European languages on the one hand and Œexotic¹ languages like Chinese on the other. Further, I argue that literary merit in the source culture does not seem to play a large role in determining why these texts were repeatedly translated. Instead, there were at least eight inter-related factors: the relative ease of retranslating a text versus translating a never-before translated text, a desire to establish oneself as an authority by superseding earlier translations, the rise of Sinology as a profession, factionalism within academia, canon formation, fashion, changing perceptions of how translation should properly be done, and international rivalry between different European countries.
