# Editing of classic novels posthumously **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 7, 2023, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320 "2023-04-07T16:21:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2023, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/81 "2023-04-10T16:37:58Z")
On the other hand, that kind of aphorism can be used to argue against/minimize acknowledging that some phrases or words still in use are demeaning or hurtful. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2023, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/82 "2023-04-10T21:47:31Z")
> [@phs3](#): > > Someone wiser than me wrote that “Every minute spent worrying about [this stuff] is another minute not spent solving the actual problem”. I don’t think that’s wise at all. “This stuff” is part of the actual problem. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/83 "2023-04-12T01:23:26Z")
I haven’t kept up with the thread. What have they done to Mark Twain? Black Jim? ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/84 "2023-04-12T02:23:20Z")
I have an Elmore Leonard novel in my bedside stack o’books that I’ve started a few times but never really gotten into. It doesn’t help that the book is set in 1930s Kentucky and everyone is dropping n-bombs right and left. I don’t want to have to encounter casual racial slurs while reading a murder mystery, and even more so I don’t want my kid to have to do so. If the choice is between reading these novels in their “authentic” form or not reading them at all, most people are going to go for option #2. And it seems most people who are in the business of selling popular fiction understand that. Sure, schools should teach kids how racist almost all white people were until quite recently, but there’s a time, place, and context for that. Literature classes might be one such place, but hopefully the vast majority of one’s reading will be for pleasure, and I see no reason why editors of classic books shouldn’t edit in a way that will make the works more rather than less accessible to the modern casual reader. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/85 "2023-04-12T02:38:12Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I haven’t kept up with the thread. What have they done to Mark Twain? Black Jim? How do you mean, “done to”? Twain’s work is out of copyright, so you can find, for example, the 1885 edition of Huckleberry Finn reproduced verbatim at Project Gutenberg, complete with the original n-words. You can also find, for example, more recent editions such as the 2011 version from New South Books, whose editor [remarks:](http://www.newsouthbooks.com/twain/introduction-alan-gribben-mark-twain-tom-sawyer-huckleberry-finn-newsouth-books.html) > [@](#): > > Far more controversial than this reuniting of Twain’s boy books will be the editor’s decision to eliminate two racial slurs that have increasingly formed a barrier to these works for teachers, students, and general readers. The editor thus hopes to introduce both books to a wider readership than they can currently enjoy. Twain, it should be remembered, was endeavoring to accurately depict the prevailing social attitudes along the Mississippi River Valley during the 1840s […] > > We may applaud Twain’s ability as a prominent American literary realist to record the speech of a particular region during a specific historical era, but abusive racial insults that bear distinct connotations of permanent inferiority nonetheless repulse modern-day readers. Twain’s two books do not deserve ever to join that list of literary “classics” he once humorously defined as those “which people praise and don’t read,” yet the long-lofty status of _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ has come under question in recent decades. In this connection, it seems relevant to remember that Twain habitually read aloud his day’s writings to an audience gathered on the porch of his summer retreat overlooking Elmira, New York, watching and listening for reactions to each manuscript page. He likewise took cues about adjusting his tone from lecture platform appearances, which provided him with direct responses to his diction. As a notoriously commercial writer who watched for every opportunity to enlarge the mass market for his works, he presumably would have been quick to adapt his language if he could have foreseen how today’s audiences recoil at racial slurs in a culturally altered country. […] > > Through a succession of firsthand experiences, this editor gradually concluded that an epithet-free edition of Twain’s books is necessary today. […] Indeed, numerous communities currently ban _Huckleberry Finn_ as required reading in public schools owing to its offensive racial language and have quietly moved the title to voluntary reading lists. […] ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/86 "2023-04-12T02:44:37Z")
I have a mystery novel from 2020, not 1930, which includes dialogue like > [@](#): > > “You wanna bet he’s calling me a nigger in his head?” Boonie asked. > > Beauregard chuckled. “Hell, he was probably doing that before he sat down,” he said. > > Boonie swiveled in his chair and locked the safe that sat behind him. "Long as he don’t say it out loud. You see that hat he was wearing? Them good ol’ boys always telling us to get over slavery[…] I do not live in rural Virginia [where this takes place], therefore cannot tell you how authentic that dialogue is, but if it is, do you really think the story would be served by changing it? Same for Mark Twain (who went out of his way to emphasize that he was attempting to reproduce authentic dialectical speech). ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/87 "2023-04-12T06:49:10Z")
What does “authenticity” have to do with anything? Is it OK to change a writer’s original words if it turns out the writer was factually wrong about something? And what does it mean to “serve” a story? Why should we be more concerned about “serving” the story than about serving the reader? And if your question is just “Is Huckleberry Finn a more enjoyable book to read without all the racist epithets?”, my answer would be “It’s hard to imagine how anyone other than a racist could think otherwise”. It may be a less accurate representation of mid-19th century Southern speech patterns, but there are textbooks you can go to if that’s what you want to learn about. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/88 "2023-04-12T08:07:10Z")
If the writer or editor screws up, certainly they can and often do fix things in subsequent editions. This is not limited to factual errors, and sometimes includes changing offensive language or characterization. As for “authenticity”, I mean you, the reader, for your own enjoyment and entertainment, would expect a couple of 21st-century middle-aged black guys from rural Virginia to talk like a couple of middle-aged black guys from 21st-century rural Virginia. Or possibly not; sometimes there is a literary reason why not, but it is not randomly edited, because different words tell a different story. As for Mark Twain, he wrote > [@](#): > > In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. > > I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. so I am under the impression the final result is more or less what he wanted. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/89 "2023-04-12T11:29:24Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > And if your question is just “Is Huckleberry Finn a more enjoyable book to read without all the racist epithets?”, my answer would be “It’s hard to imagine how anyone other than a racist could think otherwise”. I dunno. It’s certainly unpleasant to encounter the racial epithets. It’s also unpleasant to encounter the attitudes _behind_ those racial epithets; yet those attitudes are a key part of the story and a key part of the society that Twain is depicting. In general, many books include language and events that the reader may well find unpleasant, shocking, or even traumatic; yet the book wouldn’t work as well, or maybe even at all, if they were left out. On the other hand, encountering such epithets in a book can cause genuine distress, especially for a reader who has had them used against him- or herself in real life. What’s the solution? Is replacing them with dashes or asterisks any better? or are readers still going to think about the words and experience the same effect? And it seems somehow dishonest, inauthentic, and maybe inadvertantly comic, to replace, say, the n-word with something like “African-American” or “person with a lot of melanin.” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/90 "2023-04-12T11:40:07Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I have an Elmore Leonard novel in my bedside stack o’books that I’ve started a few times but never really gotten into. It doesn’t help that the book is set in 1930s Kentucky and everyone is dropping n-bombs right and left. _The Moonshine War_ is a good story. Not my favorite, but worth reading. The characters in the book who use bigoted language are who they are. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/91 "2023-04-12T12:29:20Z")
Thanks, Kimstu. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/92 "2023-04-12T15:04:27Z")
Twain was writing about bigotry and ignorance, and the damage they did (and do) to everyone concerned, including both the ignorant bigots and their victims. He did so by illustrating bigotry and ignorance. Adults reading _Huckleberry Finn_, among others, as literature and/or as history should, IMO, be reading the original version – and be discussing, among other matters, how Twain was using specific words to accomplish that specific effect. Children reading the books as adventure stories are another matter entirely. Some children may benefit, or at least take no harm, from reading the originals, especially with explication from a skilled adult. But I’ve got no problem at all with the existence of children’s versions that tone down the language. If Clemens were still around to ask, of course it would be necessary to ask him; as that’s no longer possible, people who are now living need to make the decisions. Schools at earlier than college level teaching the book as serious literature/history are the tricky one. That one I think needs to be a judgement call taking into consideration the age of the students, the particular students in the class, and the ability and skill of the teacher. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320/93 "2023-04-12T17:15:03Z")
The version of _Huckleberry Finn_ that I read as a youth was Bowlderised - not the language, but the entire story line of the feud where people were killed, including the boy Buck’s age, was taken out. I only discovered the missing part when I read an adult version, years later. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/editing-of-classic-novels-posthumously/982320.md?page=4)