Posted by Peter H on January 08, 2006 at 14:37:18 from 86.142.67.2 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Editing Potter posted by Laurence Monkhouse on January 08, 2006 at 09:14:21:
Heaven, please save AR from this
Well, of course, a book can be re-edited badly, or it can be re-edited well. I do not regard AR's text as absolutely 'sacred' - it is not a Gospel. But for a far more expert and articulate and sensible view than mine, I take the liberty of reproducing a passage from a recent posting by Joy which has rather got lost down on a rambling thread down below:
'All editing, whether pre- or post-publication, is intended to communicate the author's message to his or her readership as clearly as possible. If that readership is limited in any way (the book is intended principally for children or is to be used as a textbook) and the language may be unfamiliar to part of its audience or outmoded in its use, then there is a very real case for glossing such words or terms or replacing them. Armada (now HarperCollins) did this silently and consistently in the 1960s with its reprints of Malcolm Saville, Elinor Brent-Dyer and Angela Brazil - and doubtless with other authors too. Armada did not point this out to its readership in any way other than by including the words "revised edition" on the copyright page. My 1930s and 1950s school editions of Chaucer, Byron's Don Juan and Spenser's Faerie Queen removed all the "filthy" bits to a handy appendix. More recent publications, such as those of Dorita Fairlie Bruce by Girls Gone By publishers, have made it clear that words such as n----- and cripple have been replaced in the text because they carry different meanings for the modern (especially the modern young) reader.'