The Translator's Invisibility traces the history of translation from the seventeenth century to the present day. It shows how fluency prevailed over other translation strategies to shape the canon of foreign literatures in English, and investigates the cultural consequences of the domestic values which were simultaneously inscribed and masked in foreign texts during this period. Lawrence Venuti examines alternative theories of translation which aim to communicate linguistic and cultural differences instead of eliding them. This book is an indispensable explanation of the way in which translation can be studied as a locus of difference.