# reading the REAL book **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 3, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817 "2009-04-03T06:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MichaelJohnBertrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dfb087/32.png) [@MichaelJohnBertrand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelJohnBertrand)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/1 "2009-04-03T06:12:06Z")
In my last year of high school, we were assigned Huckleberry Finn to read. What luck! I thought. My mother read the book to me when I was a wee lad, and I’d read it a dozen times since. This would be the easiest two weeks of Advanced English ever! While everyone else was reading and sweating, I could just kick back and relax. It would be like being quizzed on my own life. And all went well… at first. But then, one day, everyone in the class was talking about parts of the book I didn’t remember at ALL. I was thrown for a loop and a half, with a twist. Could I have forgotten so much? So when I get home from school that day, I immediately pull the good old copy of Huck Finn that I’d had since I was a tiny tot down off the shelf and look for the passages referred to in the day’s assignment. And to my astonishment, they just plain weren’t there. My head was swimming from the sheer surreality of it all. Could there be two books with the same name, equally famous? As it turns out, of course, yes there could be. Kind of. Because when, in searching for answers, I looked on the front cover, for the first time in my life I noticed the two words which solved the mystery : Children’s Edition. Turns out, I’d been reading a fairly heavily Bowdlerized version all those years. So with an air of mystery and wonder, I took out the edition I’d been given in school, which I had not even glanced at before, and began reading the REAL book that Mark Twain wrote. Needless to say, it was a lot darker. I fell in love with the book all over again. Has anyone else Teeming along here had a similar experience? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/2 "2009-04-03T06:37:37Z")
Yep. At seventeen in school I played Romeo on stage (no kidding). Had my lines down pat. When I was assigned to read it in college I figured I had it made. Like you, imagine my shock at learning I had learned, rehearsed, and played a bowdlerized script in high school! Argh! ---
**Author:** ![manila](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@manila](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manila)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/3 "2009-04-03T10:07:14Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Yep. At seventeen in school I played Romeo on stage (no kidding). Had my lines down pat. > > When I was assigned to read it in college I figured I had it made. Like you, imagine my shock at learning I had learned, rehearsed, and played a bowdlerized script in high school! Argh! I never studied Gorky Park because I figured I could hire the movie :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/4 "2009-04-03T10:51:12Z")
If you read Charles and Mary Lamb’s versions of Shakespeare’s plays before seeing the originals, you’d be in for some big surprises. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/5 "2009-04-03T11:08:34Z")
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/6 "2009-04-03T12:21:07Z")
Richard Wright’s Native Son. The original was really cleaned up, particularly the scene in the movie theater. Apparently chopping a white girl’s head off is fine and dandy, but jerking off to a movie of her isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Elret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Elret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elret)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/7 "2009-04-03T12:51:35Z")
Little Women! I read it cover to cover and didn’t come across certain major events that I had always heard associated with the book. I gave it to my sister who had recommended it in the first place and she was shockde to find out the the book I had contained only HALF of the actual novel. It just _stopped_ partway through. It’s not like pages were missing or anything, just someone had picked what they thought was a good ending and cut the rest out. It wasn’t labelled as such so I wrote to the publisher and they sent me another copy of the real thing. It was weird. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/8 "2009-04-03T13:06:34Z")
You mean Beth didn’t die in your book? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/9 "2009-04-03T13:07:23Z")
> [@Elret](#): > > Little Women! I read it cover to cover and didn’t come across certain major events that I had always heard associated with the book. I gave it to my sister who had recommended it in the first place and she was shockde to find out the the book I had contained only HALF of the actual novel. It just _stopped_ partway through. It’s not like pages were missing or anything, just someone had picked what they thought was a good ending and cut the rest out. It wasn’t labelled as such so I wrote to the publisher and they sent me another copy of the real thing. It was weird. Do you mean the second part, “Good Wives,” wasn’t included? ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce73a5/32.png) [@Black\_Sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Sunshine)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/10 "2009-04-03T14:16:12Z")
Similar to **Jonathan Chance,** I was in a production of _Hamlet_ when I was a pre-teen. Only played a guard, but by the time it was all said and done, I had pretty much everyone’s lines memorized. I didn’t do so well on the test my senior year of high school. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/11 "2009-04-03T14:24:54Z")
My parents subscribed to the _Reader’s Digest Condensed Books_ series. When I was a kid, I spent a lot of pleasant hours with those books, and only years later fully understood what they meant by “condensed”. ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/12 "2009-04-03T17:03:19Z")
For me it was Count of Monte Cristo. I’d always loved the story and decided to read the actual book. Suffice to say I did not notice the “Abridged” notation on the Penguin Classics. Introducing the Cavalcanti plot then skipping to what happened afterward was confusing in the extreme. I’ve since read the complete book in English and struggled through the French. One of the best books ever written, so long as you get the complete story. ---
**Author:** ![Simmerdown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simmerdown/32/14859_2.png) [@Simmerdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simmerdown)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/13 "2009-04-03T17:23:49Z")
From the thread title, I thought you were talking about this [Real Book](http://www.musicroom.com/images/catalogue/fullsize/HLE90002363.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![RachelChristine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RachelChristine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RachelChristine)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/14 "2009-04-03T18:44:58Z")
For me and my best friend it was Little Women. Somehow I had two copies, and had read it from both. I don’t remember when I realized that one was different from the other, but it was just a slightly condensed version. Lots of small things were left out of one. My best friend and I were talking one day, as older teenagers, maybe even college age, and I said something about how cool it was that Tommy Bangs is mentioned at the end setting fire to something. She didn’t remember it and got it out to look for it. Wasn’t in her copy. We started going through and comparing and she had never read the full version of the book! It was always that same condensed one similar to what I’d had when I was younger. They did not say condensed or abridged on them anywhere that we noticed. I’d bet it would be kind of wonderful to read an old favorite that has new parts! Even if they are small little things. ---
**Author:** ![Jester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jester/32/8223_2.png) [@Jester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jester)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/15 "2009-04-03T19:15:05Z")
Part of me wishes I were a high school English teacher these days, simply because of how much fun it would be to teach _Beowulf_ to a bunch of kids who had the recent movie readily accessible. I imagine it’s made spotting the kids who hadn’t actually done the readings just a little bit easier. ---
**Author:** ![Helena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c68b51/32.png) [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/16 "2009-04-03T19:34:43Z")
I read _Les Misérables_ (I thought) while I was in junior high. It never dawned on me that it could be abridged, I mean, it was around 700-800 pages. Then years later I picked up a different copy, and discovered that there was all this stuff about the Bishop at the beginning that I didn’t remember at all. Huh. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/17 "2009-04-03T19:43:51Z")
Yeah, it’s hard to find an unabridged _Les Mis_. Well, maybe hard it overstating it, but most editions are abridged (without the fascinating history of Paris’ sewer system). ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/18 "2009-04-03T20:19:13Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > My parents subscribed to the _Reader’s Digest Condensed Books_ series. When I was a kid, I spent a lot of pleasant hours with those books, and only years later fully understood what they meant by “condensed”. This was how I discovered how important an author’s style could be. I read _A Christmas Carol_ in the condensed version as a kid, and years later I read it again, the real one. Found out I had missed out of the whole “dead as a doorknob” discussion, and so much more. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/19 "2009-04-03T20:22:28Z")
I was reading _Pride and Prejudice_ and wondered what happened to all the Zombies. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Elyanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5ac83/32.png) [@Elyanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elyanna)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817/20 "2009-04-03T20:32:59Z")
Oh, yes. My favorite book as a kid was _Call of the Wild._ Of course, the version I had was very abridged and illustrated. One of my first book purchases ever was a Jack London anthology… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reading-the-real-book/491817.md?page=2)