Quote:
Originally Posted by hildea
[*]Republish with all the original phrasing, and probably lose money
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1. Whether changes as big as with Dahl were made to Wodehouse, we don't know yet, perhaps because the Wodehouse news story only broke a day or two ago (depending on your time zone). But if all they did was find and replace the most offensive word in the English language, I don't think PRH would acknowledge it, or that we would be discussing it.
2. I still don't get the lose money thing. What happens in Waterstones when someone opens
Right Ho, Jeeves, looks at the first few pages, and sees the edit warning? I think the effect is either neutral, or it decides them on not buying. Conceivably, maybe, a WHSmith or Waterstones buyer threatened to stop stocking a book if it wasn't bowdlerized. But I think bookstore chain management would override the threat. That's because, if it ever got out that a high street bookstore chain actually dropped Wodehouse for this reason, the publicity would harm the chain's sales generally. So I still think the bowderization, and trigger warnings, probably come from staff who sincerely believe in what is, to me, a 1984-light appoach to literature of the past.