found his literary mentor

[rainous]

HI. I was translating a sentence into English and ran into a problem. I would very much appreciate your help.

1. Thomas Hardy found his literary mentor in no other novelists than George Crabbe and his prose stories.

2. Thomas Hardy found his literary inspiration from none other than George Crabbe and his prose stories.

The first sentence is a more literal English translation of the sentence and
the second one is more figurative one, the version I suppose will read more easily to English natives.

My questions are:

1. Does "found his mentor" in the above context make any sense or read OK to English natives?
IF not, is the second sentence a possible alternative?

(I want to stick with the first one since I prefer more literal translations, but if it doesn't make any sense AT ALL, I guess I have to look for some other words.)

2. Is the phrase "in no other novelists than" in the first one grammatically acceptable in the context?

**The thrust of my question is if there is any way to keep the words "found" and "novelists" and make the sentence still sound OK?

Thanks.

[billmcd]

HI. I was translating a sentence into English and ran into a problem. I would very much appreciate your help.

1. Thomas Hardy found his literary mentor in no other novelists than George Crabbe and his prose stories. I would prefer this to read "...no novelists other than....".

2. Thomas Hardy found his literary inspiration from none other than George Crabbe and his prose stories. OK
Either statement (with revision to #1) reads well, but if forced to make a choice, I would go with #2.

The first sentence is a more literal English translation of the sentence and
the second one is more figurative one, the version I suppose will read more easily to English natives.

My questions are:

1. Does "found his mentor" in the above context make any sense or read OK to English natives? . IF not, is the second sentence a possible alternative? Use of "mentor" would suggest a more personal and professional relationship/influence. If not the case, "inspiration" would be best.

(I want to stick with the first one since I prefer more literal translations, but if it doesn't make any sense AT ALL, I guess I have to look for some other words.)

2. Is the phrase "in no other novelists than" in the first one grammatically acceptable in the context? See above.

**The thrust of my question is if there is any way to keep the words "found" and "novelists" and make the sentence still sound OK? Both are OK.

Thanks.

b.