Posted by PeterH on September 18, 2006 at 23:33:25 from 81.153.238.49 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Hotting up the past posted by Adam Quinan on September 18, 2006 at 22:58:15:
singularly counter-productive to put a quote like that anywhere on the books
Adam - I can see your logic, but there may be a number of reasons why Puffin used the Lehmann quote:
1) They might have wanted to keep the Lehmann name on the blurb, because they felt it gave literary authority;
2) They might have felt that the Lehmann blurb, although 'period', was part of the 'history' of the books in question and should not be separated from them;
3) They may have felt that modern readers would re-interpret the blurb in an ironic way, rather akin to the title 'Dangerous Book for Boys' which has just been published (I think this an unlikely reason, because the Puffins were published in the late 1960s)
4) They may simply not have addressed their minds to the problem, ie the 'inertia' reason;
5) It is just possible that RL wrote 'boys and girls' but a subeditor shortened it because space was wanted, or because he/she thought that mention of 'girls' would put boy readers off (see recent posts on this by Prue and others). It is likely that RL's comments were drastically edited down - that usually happens in blurbs. I suggest that if TarBoard ire is to be directed at anyone, RL should be spared, and an anonymous sub put in the firing line - the probable culprit.
Finally, does anyone know whether the blurb is still used, eg on the Red Fox editions? If not, then isn't the whole thing a bit academic now? (Not, I hasten to add, that that stops us talking about it on TarBoard.)