Приказчица

The paper examines a Bulgarian text published in 1874 in the periodical Chitalishte, which was an adaptation of Poe's short story Some Words with a Mummy. Although the name of the original author was mentioned in a footnote (in English, at that), the title was slightly changed and the plot was related to the Bulgarian society of the 1870s. While the American author criticized modern civilization, Ivan E. Geshof (1849-1924), the author of the adaptation and Prime Minister-to-be (1911-1913), focused on topics, topical for his compatriots - the newly-established Bulgarian church, Bulgarian teachers, etc - the Bulgarian National Revival as a whole. This adaptation of Poe's work has not attracted the attention of the scholars, but was an important and, in a sense, extraordinary event in the history of Bulgarian reception of foreign literature. It was probably the first translation directly from English and demonstrated a relatively high literary competence. Along with the first translation of E. A. Poe - The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1856), which used a Greek source, Some Words with a Mummy set the American writer in an unusual context and preceded the interest in his poems in the early 20th century. The article includes the full text of this second translation from Poe in Bulgarian.