It would have been a shattering blow to Zamenhof if, on top of all of his other troubles, the books he sacrificed so much to publish and distribute had been ignored or rejected. However, as we know, that was not the case. Zamenhof had done his work too well. Very soon, he began to receive correspondence and even visits from people who had learned his language and, from the beginning, the history of Esperanto was enlivened with many interesting and gifted individuals. And with people who have been a menace to the movement.
Let me illustrate this last point by mentioning one from each category. After the appearance of the Russian and Polish versions of La Unua Libro, Zamenhof prepared a German version himself but entrusted an English translation to one of his earliest supporters who claimed to have a competent knowledge of English. How competent may be judged from the first sentence which read: "The reader will doubtless take with mistrust this opuscule in hand, deeming that he has it here to do with some irrealizable utopy."
Zamenhof's bad luck, of having invested his rapidly dwindling capital in such a dreadful travesty, was followed by the good luck of that translation falling very quickly into the hands of Richard H Geoghegan, a severely disabled but brilliant scholar who had just received a prize from Oxford University for his abilities in the Chinese language. (In later life he studied the Aleut language and became an authority on the early history of Alaska; he helped to decipher the Mayan Calendar; and contributed to research on early Chinese and Indian literature).
The bad translation of the English version of La Unua Libro did not prevent Geoghegan from recognising the excellence of Zamenhof's creation and he became the first person from Great Britain to learn Esperanto. He also offered to write a better translation: a generous offer which Zamenhof gratefully accepted. The earlier version was withdrawn and destroyed and Geoghegan's version published instead.
More and more people became enthusiastic supporters of the new language and in 1891, only four years after the appearance of the Russian original of La Unua Libro thirty three textbooks in twelve different languages were available. Zamenhof had to work until very late every night, not only writing new translations of classical works into Esperanto, but also answering the numerous letters he received from various countries.
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