[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Download the scans. Or find someone who declares that they are replicating the original as much as possible.

Sure. Before I buy a book at Amazon or BN, I always conduct an extensive preliminary investigation and proofread the digital version against the printed version.

You have no idea if a work was re-edited by the publisher or author, either. Readers who picked up the Nancy Drew books recently aren't told that those aren't the same ones their parents or grandparents loved as children. Poetry, especially, is subject to change; it's not always clear where the original line breaks were supposed to be, and which were added to fit on the paper used originally.

I don't understand what's not getting through here. The creator and/or the copyright holder can do whatever the hell they please with THEIR book. Yes they can reedit, rewrite, revise, redact, refuse to sell. IT'S THEIR PROPERTY. This is not the issue. I don't like it as a rule, but IT'S THEIR PROPERTY. I can paint my walls eggplant purple with pink and green dots, and everyone else can think it's hideous but they're my walls. But I can't go to the reading room of the public library--public, paid for with my tax dollars--with a can of purple paint, because it's not my call.

Those who value exact reproductions of a specific edition are always going to be a minority of readers. (I say this knowing full well that Han shot first, and I really wish we had good copies available of that version.)

First off, you say this based on what? Second, who cares? It's not a matter of majority opinion.

While I'm not in favor of removing "icky content" from past books, I am in favor of keeping stories alive by making them more accessible to modern readers. There's never going to be a simple hard line that divides those activities; it's always going to be a matter of editorial judgment. I can't see any moral obligation to only do conversion work if one is willing to do an as-much-as-possible exact replica.

"Icky" is in the eye of the beholder.

It's really simple. Leave the text alone to stand or fall on its merits. If it's a great book, it doesn't need the tinkering. If it's not, if the nonPC-ness and old-fashioned sensibilities are so overwhelming a burden, let it be consigned to the trash heap.