Quote:
Originally Posted by PandathePanda
I really like to read books the way they originally where created with the original language use. So "updating" words that "lost: their meaning makes me feel cheated.
|
I would make a distinction between editing classics that are sold to adults as classics, and editing childrens' books that are still sold specifically as childrens' books. The former should not (IMHO) be "modernised"; I can see a valid argument for modernising the former.
For example, as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, the massively popular British childrens' author Enid Bylton (whose output comprised a significant proportion of my own childhood reading) used expressions which would be considered wildly racist in today's world. It's right that modern editions of these books should be appropriately edited for today's multicultural British society, just as in the US the "Hardy Boys" and "Nancy Drew" series were. I'm a collector of early 20th-century childrens' books, and the overt racism in the original editions of the "Hardy Boys" books is pretty shocking by today's standards.