Abstrakt
Levý's book, published in 1957, re-edited in 1996 and in 2019-2020, may have been the earliest comprehensive study on the history of not only literary translation in a national (i.e. Czech) culture within the European context, spanning the period between the Middle Ages and 1945, and complemented by an extensive anthology of texts reflecting on period modes of translation and its roles.
Levý is internationally known for his Translation as a Decision Process (1967) and The Art of Translation (1969 in German, 1972 in Russian, 2011 in English, 2013 in Spanish), however, this book is only available in Czech, except for a chapter on European Classicism and Romanticism translated into English (2012). The paper reflects on the following: (a) the topicality of the book for its readership today, (b) editorial changes in the 1996 edition, (c) the need for a new re-edition and its technicalities, incl. editorial issues.