UK fans waiting for the History of Sonic the Hedgehog book have finally been given an approximate release dat of early of December, according to UDON Entertainment who will be distributing the English version of the 300-page compendium.

Although this date is later than had been initially anticipated (and with confusion a few months ago as to whether the publication had been cancelled), UDON Entertainment explain via their blog that these delays were due to the quality of the translation from the French version of the book. Quoting from the blog:

The reason for the delay from the original shipping date comes entirely down to quality: we wanted to make this book the very best it could be. When we put up our initial preview pages along with the book’s announcement this summer, some fans noticed that the writing was a little bit stiff. While Pix’n Love did an amazing job with the French language edition of this book, the English translation that UDON was provided with just wasn’t the strongest it could be. We at UDON have always prided ourselves on the quality of our books, so when we realized that this book wouldn’t read as smoothly as we wanted it to, we decided to re-write all 300 pages of the English translation. That’s what the fans would want, and that’s what we wanted because we’re fans too.

The re-write by UDON Associate Editor Ash Paulsen (a Sonic super fan according to the blog) is now approved by SEGA, and should give fans looking to purchase a copy for Christmas extra assurance that this title should be a top quality production.

The blog also has a sneak preview of the first 12 pages, so if you’re in two minds you can check out what you can expect inside.