In 1996 John Minford and Sharon Lai worked on a preliminary translation of LOCH to be titled "Eagles and Heroes". It was supposed to be published by Oxford University Press but for whatever reason it never happened. John Minford you'll recall translated The Deer and the Cauldron in three volumes, the latter two volumes abridged.

Anyway, en excerpt of about half of chapter 1 of their "Eagles and Heroes" was published in a book of papers on translating martial arts fiction called The Question of Reception. I got hold of it and have shared this excerpt on my blog, Wuxia Wanderings, if anyone would like to take a look.

https://wuxiawanderings.com/an-early...er-came-to-be/


Interesting to compare it to the recent official translation by Anna Holmwood et al.