Publications

I’m an undergraduate student who requires a little help with referencing!

I understand Harvard Referencing, e.g. surname, date and page number in brackets after a quotation, and then author, date, italicised title, place of publication and publisher in the references/bibliography at the end.

Example: Nietzsche ‘finds that even the most radical of contemporary freethinkers still believe in “Truth” itself’ (Morgan 1943: 241). This indicates …

Then in the bibliography:
Morgan, G. A. (1943) What Nietzsche Means, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

BUT my problem comes with referencing older books. So if I were to quote Nietzsche, would I use the date of his original publication or the date of the copy I hold? My example being ‘The Genealogy of Morals’, which was originally published in 1887, but my copy was printed in 2003. Which do I use? Another problem is that my 2003 edition is a reprint of a 1913 translation – should I use this? One referencing guide I found online recommended referencing the original date and the newer date, like: (Nietzsche [1887] 2003: 45). But others have said just use the original date (in which case, how do you know which translator’s copy and edition have been used?) and others have said use the newer date (which would suggest that Nietzsche wrote the book in 2003!) and others have said use the date of the original publication of the translation (i.e. 1913 – but then it won’t take into account any edits made in future editions). Which date/s should I reference?! Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Another related query is whether I should put the translator’s name in the bibliography too.
Example:
Nietzsche, F. (1887) The Genealogy of Morals (trans. Samuel, H. B.), New York, Dover Publications Inc.

Or whether, I should leave out the translator’s name.
Example:
Nietzsche, F. (1887) The Genealogy of Morals, New York, Dover Publications Inc.

Again, thanks for your help!

(Side comment: I’ve seen 3 different titles for this book, ‘The Genealogy of Morals’, ‘On The Genealogy of Morals’ and ‘On The Genealogy of Morality’ – if the translators can’t even agree on a title, how am I meant to get an accurate idea of Nietzsche’s philosophy without reading it in the original German?!)

If someone quotes him and you haven’t read the original then you put

Bloggs, J (1914) Reproducibility of nonsense, Blah (as quoted by J. Smith (1998) J Irreproducible Results 7:34)

One way to be specific although not strictly Harvard is to quote the ISBN number of the book you used.

Personally when using translations I quoted the translation reference and then, in brackets, translated from the original reference and give the translators name as by … if it is given.

Nietzsche, F. (1887) The Genealogy of Morals (trans. Samuel, H. B.), New York, Dover Publications Inc.
would be
Nietzsche, F (date) The Genealogy of Morals, Dover Publication (as translated from F. Nietzsche (1887) german title by H.B. Samuel)

When reading translations you always get the original filtered through another mind which has made selections from the options available. No language ever completely maps onto another – just consult an english thesaurus dictionary for examples of the range of words having parts of their meanings in common.