The Ethics of Typesetting

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

The one book I did make some changes to was the 32nd in a 40 book children's fantasy series. It was the second to last book by a writer that contributed 19 books to that series. She made one bad choice that sticks out like a sore thumb and taints her legacy and the series. I made the very tough choice to modify the work. I clearly communicated my mental dilemma in the editor's note. I archived the original text for anyone interested in seeing it. And I made it crystal clear in the titling and sales blurbs that I made changes. I know I angered some fans--I fully expected to--but I also know readers now have more choices and the work is more accessible than it was before. People can read and enjoy the original book or they can read and enjoy my release.

And I struggle to see how people could have a problem with that.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have two different versions of Josephine Tey's 1929 novel "The Man in the Queue". The original 1929 text uses the word "dago" to refer to one of the main characters in the book. I have a 1960s edition of the same book in which "dago" has been changed to "Levantine". Does this really horrify you? I think of it as the job of an editor to make this type of change as a result of language changing. In the 1920s it was acceptable (in Britain) to refer to a person of Mediterranean appearance as a "dago"; by the 1960s it was not.

Yes. It does horrify me.

It's an editor's job to maximise the commercial potential of a book, not to regard a writer's words as "holy writ that must not be changed". Pretty much every book needs editing before publishing, and if it stays in print for decades, it may well need re-editing to account for societal changes. That's not "horrifying"; it's the editor's job.

Before publication, the editor and the writer can do whatever the heck they want to massage the manuscript. After publication? No. It IS holy writ, unless the author vets any changes or decides to rewrite for a new edition, clearly stating that he or she is doing so in the new edition.

And this discussion points out why there's something a little bit frightening about e-books. They are too easily altered. Frankly, I'm now going to go back to Project Gutenberg for some of the books I've downloaded from MR, because I no longer feel confident of what I'm getting from MR.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Catlady

And this discussion points out why there's something a little bit frightening about e-books. They are too easily altered. Frankly, I'm now going to go back to Project Gutenberg for some of the books I've downloaded from MR, because I no longer feel confident of what I'm getting from MR.

PG books will normally include changes to correct obvious spelling mistakes, but be otherwise faithful to the original.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

British English is another language. Why should we ignore the fact that an untranslated word will unnecessarily confuse the target audience--kids all around the world? Writers won't use complex technical jargon in their children's books when there is another word that means essentially the same thing.

Oh, OK, I guess I'm bilingual then: I'm fluent in American English and I get by in British English. Who knew?

I don't like T.S. Eliot for this exact reason. He used multiple different languages in the same poem and provided no footnotes, translation, or explanation. What he was essentially saying to me--the reader--is that I'm not smart enough to read his poems. His intention was to filter out readers not in his target audience. If he had included footnotes with translations his target audience would have grown.

Maybe what mattered to him wasn't the size of his audience but precision of language. Maybe he wanted just this specific shade of meaning, and not that other ever-so-slightly different meaning. Sometimes there are words in other languages that cannot be precisely translated. But it doesn't matter why--it only matters that he made the choices he did, and you are not allowed to change them because you don't approve.

I don't think writers of children's books are interested in filtering people out though.

Not knowing the meaning of a word is one thing. 95% of readers knowing the correct meaning of a modern word when the word was used for its archaic or foreign definition though...

If it's extremely distracting, like the words "gay" or "faggot," and the work in question is genre fiction for kids I don't see any benefits of leaving the word there. What are the benefits?

Faithfulness to what the author originally wrote. Recognition that language is changeable. Appreciation of the beauty of words. Expansion of one's understanding of the past.

What I know is that I'm publishing obscure books today, for the enjoyment of readers today. And I know that the author, if he/she was writing the exact same book today, would not use that word in that way. I feel, in the cases I have noted, it is safe to assume they would have chosen the word that conveys the correct idea. To do otherwise would be to assume the writer lacked the skill to choose an appropriate word.

You KNOW the author would want the change? Are you channeling the author? You know only that YOU want the change.

If I had written "I hate fags" in a sci-fi novel decades ago, and then died, I would prefer it be corrected. I would prefer people give me the benefit of the doubt and assume I did not intend a definition that did not exist when I wrote the word.

Fine, you can leave instructions that the books you write should be periodically cleansed of offensive language. Authors who did not leave such directions should be left alone.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Before publication, the editor and the writer can do whatever the heck they want to massage the manuscript. After publication? No. It IS holy writ, unless the author vets any changes or decides to rewrite for a new edition, clearly stating that he or she is doing so in the new edition.

You're welcome to avoid all new editions of PD works; many publishers regularly edit them. Punctuation is changed to the new standards, phrasing that would now be incomprehensible is shifted, and slang terms are substituted for more modern ones. Italics may be added or removed. Whole sections might be removed to make a condensed version more accessible to children.

For a very long time, authors accepted that editors would change their works a bit, and that was part of the cost of publication. Ever new edition was likely to be tweaked. Public domain works can not only be republished at will, but edited, translated, derivatives made, adapted to other media entirely.

You don't have to like it, but railing against one of the foundations of the literary publications industry isn't likely to win you a lot of support.

And this discussion points out why there's something a little bit frightening about e-books. They are too easily altered. Frankly, I'm now going to go back to Project Gutenberg for some of the books I've downloaded from MR, because I no longer feel confident of what I'm getting from MR.

Books were always easily altered--by publishers, who often didn't tell *anyone*--not the author, and not the public--what changes had been made.. The range of publishers has just opened up to a lot more people.

There is no "original, pristine book." The version the author sent to the publisher isn't the version that went to press. It's laughable to say that it's okay to accept edits the author was miserably unhappy with at the time, but was locked into a contract, but it's not okay to make further edits later without direct consent. Plenty of books get edited without author consent. Edits done under contract for the purpose of driving sales are no more ethical and true to the original art than edits done 80 years later with an eye for the current potential readership.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

Outside of that particular chapter in the 32nd book, readers never come across groups of characters that could be confused for real-world characters in any of the other 39 books.

Then, out of the blue, this wizard has a legion of "black slaves." They are called "the blacks" all over that chapter and the adjective black is sprinkled in all over the place--"the black boy," "he raised his black hand," etc. There are also a couple illustrations showing them in the stereotypical caricature style from the 1930's.

I didn't want to remove illustrations so I instead tried to move them to a different context. This is a bit different than what we've been talking about with words like "faggot" in that I did change the intended meaning. Instead of black human slaves that could have been dropped into the US and fit right in picking cotton, I made them humanoid slaves made of black stone.

I searched the entire 40-book series to make sure the change fit with the lore and I tried to come up with any possible reason the slaves needed to be regular black humans. I couldn't. What I knew was, aside from these slaves, non-white people never show up in the entire series--not as heroes or villains or anything. The series had no connection to religion, politics, race, or any of the unpleasantries of real life. It's a light whimsical place accessible to readers of all races, religions, and ages. That's why I made a major change to one very minor detail.

A young reader goes through 31 books in this magical land. Their imaginations are running wild. They get to the end of the 32nd book and maybe they wind up in a talk about "reality" with their parents. Maybe their parents make them skip that book. The worst thing in my mind, though, is a non-white reader hitting book 32, heads full of fantasy and thinking of all they'd do if they were in the magical land, and then finding out that there are actually people that look just like them in the book. And those people are slaves. And then maybe that non-white reader isn't so keen on adventuring in a land where the only other people like him are slaves.

Anyhow, an entirely accessible series had one unnecessary sliver of inaccessibility. I pulled that sliver and gave parents and readers another option. The one minor detail made the book a black-eye on the whole series and on that writer's body of work. It's akin to reading 39 books in a series, getting to the end of the 40th book, and having a main character in the otherwise completely neutral series say, "don't be such a Jew."

OK, so you're apparently talking about Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Silver Princess in Oz. The pub date is 1938, so it shouldn't have fallen into public domain yet.

I find it incredible that you have taken it upon yourself to decide that the book is offensive and must be cleaned up. It's not your call. She wrote what she wrote, and it should be left alone.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

PG books will normally include changes to correct obvious spelling mistakes, but be otherwise faithful to the original.

"Faithful to the original"?? No, PG doesn't make any such attempt at all. They make their version faithful to the particular edition they work from. They make no attempt to only work from the true original first publication edition.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The Agatha Christie book 'And Then There Were None' is actually the third title that it has been published under, and there have been changes made to the text. The original title became unacceptable, and was replaced by another, that in turn became unacceptable.
I see no indication on the Amazon page for the book that this has taken place.
Should I be outraged by that?

I don't find changing the title quite as onerous, though it can be fraudulent when it produces sales to those who don't realize that it is otherwise the same as one they already have under its earlier title. Even such a title change should be documented (e.g. "originally published as...").

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Catlady

OK, so you're apparently talking about Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Silver Princess in Oz. The pub date is 1938, so it shouldn't have fallen into public domain yet.

I find it incredible that you have taken it upon yourself to decide that the book is offensive and must be cleaned up. It's not your call. She wrote what she wrote, and it should be left alone.

1) She's not around to ask if changes are acceptable. Would she rather the book was changed, or that someone dropped it from their library and refused to share it with their children because they found some parts unacceptable?

Not every author cares (or cared) about preserving their exact published words indefinitely; they'd rather their stories were read & enjoyed, even if they were tweaked a bit to match newer cultural expectations.

(Do you believe movies made from PD books are wrong, because they edit the text? The movie may be leaving out the scene the author believed to be the most important in the book.)

2) Converting a book for personal use doesn't require waiting on the public domain.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

Is this true of young readers or ESL readers? Is it fun to confuse them about word-meaning just to preserve an authorial intention that never existed?

Children aren't going to enjoy Trixie Belden more if she gaily kicks a faggot back in the fire (hypothetically). It's going to confuse them and upset the parents and probably result in the kids not being allowed to read the book in the first place.

Then maybe the kids should be fostered with parents who have a modicum of sense. It would do them good in the long run, there are enough PC mindbots as it is.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm with what appears to be the majority. Leave the ruddy books alone.

[plib]

Originally Posted by HarryT

In the 1920s it was acceptable (in Britain) to refer to a person of Mediterranean appearance as a "dago"; by the 1960s it was not.

Really? Half an hour on any high street in Britain will let you hear much worse than "dago" every day.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

This is the mindset I'm talking about. I disagree that it is arrogant for a modern editor to identify and change a problem with a previously published work. Problems don't get a free pass simply because they made it through a publishing sieve sixty years ago. We're not talking about the founding fathers here--just people doing their jobs back then and people doing their jobs today.

You do not represent the majority of pleasure readers though. Most up-and-coming readers have never heard the archaic usage of "gay" and "faggot." Coming across those terms will distract and confuse many readers, not entertain them.

If you have such great contempt for the abilities of your potential audience why are you in the business of providing books for them?

[plib]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

Remember the political aide who had to resign because he used the word "niggardly?" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...district27.htm

Christ on crutches, you're really going to use this as a justification?

Since when did ignorant and dumb become something to be applauded or aspired to?

(Written, erased, considered, rewritten. It's a valid response to a truly appalling argument.)

[plib]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

British English is another language. Why should we ignore the fact that an untranslated word will unnecessarily confuse the target audience--kids all around the world? Writers won't use complex technical jargon in their children's books when there is another word that means essentially the same thing.

I don't like T.S. Eliot for this exact reason. He used multiple different languages in the same poem and provided no footnotes, translation, or explanation. What he was essentially saying to me--the reader--is that I'm not smart enough to read his poems. His intention was to filter out readers not in his target audience. If he had included footnotes with translations his target audience would have grown.

Or maybe he wrote what he thought best expressed what he was trying to say and had a little more regard for his audience than you appear to have. Maybe he expected them explore and learn about what they didn't understand. Maybe he didn't think in terms of "a target audience" but more in terms of the value of his expression. Maybe he didn't expect his "target audience" to have such an inferiority complex that they felt "not smart enough to read his poems".

Maybe he expected people who were confused about or who didn't fully understand his language to research and learn more about it. You know, extend themselves, and their horizons. Learn to eat a full meal rather than expecting pablum served ready on a plate. It's all part of growing up and educating yourself. Which won't happen if all your mind gets is pablum.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

1) She's not around to ask if changes are acceptable. Would she rather the book was changed, or that someone dropped it from their library and refused to share it with their children because they found some parts unacceptable?

I don't know. All I know is that the book was written and published in one form, and now someone else feels justified in changing it. It's outrageous.

People here seem to go bonkers over a hint of censorship. Isn't it a form of censorship to alter what the author wrote to make it more palatable? Would you think it was hunky-dory for some member of the religious right to tone down Fanny Hill and rewrite it so that Fanny is punished for her "sins"?

Not every author cares (or cared) about preserving their exact published words indefinitely; they'd rather their stories were read & enjoyed, even if they were tweaked a bit to match newer cultural expectations.

And you know this how? It may be true for some, it may not be true for others.

(Do you believe movies made from PD books are wrong, because they edit the text? The movie may be leaving out the scene the author believed to be the most important in the book.)

Going from one medium to another is an entirely different situation. The movie is always going to be someone else's interpretation and distillation of the author's work. We know that going in.

2) Converting a book for personal use doesn't require waiting on the public domain.

Perhaps I misread--I thought the person who was making the changes was involved in publishing a new edition; hence the concern for the sensibilities of young children.