The name of classics

If someone were to ask you whether or not you’d read Trimalchio in West Egg, your first instinct might be to say ‘no’, and your second might be to marvel at the curious range of titles given to cookery books nowadays. Sorry to say, you’re possibly wrong on both counts – you might well have readTrimalchio in West Egg without realizing it, since that was an early title for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

如果有人问你是否读过《西卵的特里马乔》，你的第一反应可能是说不，然后你大概会觉得惊奇的以为这是现代烹饪书的奇怪标题。很抱歉，你可能错了。你很可能读过《西卵的特里马乔》却还不知道，因为它是F·斯科特·菲兹杰拉德《了不起的盖茨比》一书起初的名字。

Authors often change the titles of their novels before publication – either as their thoughts develop, or at the request of the publisher. Here is a list of classic novels and their working titles.

作家们常常在出版前改动小说的书名，有时是因为他们有了新的灵感，有时是出版商要求如此。下表列出了一些经典小说和它们出版前的书名。