The Wall Street Journal has posted a free link to my latest “Sightings” column:
Orion Books, one of England’s top publishing houses, has just brought out the first six titles in a series of abridged versions of such classic novels as “Anna Karenina,” “Moby-Dick” and “Vanity Fair.” The covers of these paperbacks, which have been shortened by as much as 40%, bill their contents as “Compact Editions.” “‘David Copperfield’ in Half the Time,” as one entry promises. Malcolm Edwards, the series’ publisher, told a Times of London reporter that “many regular readers think of the classics as long, slow and, to be frank, boring.”
Not surprisingly, Orion has been taking a beating from British highbrows. “It’s completely ridiculous–a daft idea,” one London bookseller told the Times. “How can you edit the classics?” Daft it may be, but no less a literary light than Somerset Maugham once undertook to prepare abridged versions of the 10 best novels ever written. His choices, which included “The Brothers Karamazov,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “War and Peace,” were unexceptionable. What kicked up a row was Maugham’s cheeky claim that “the wise reader will get the greatest enjoyment out of reading them if he learns the useful art of skipping….There is nothing reprehensible in cutting.”
I haven’t seen any of Orion’s Compact Editions–they’ll be published in the U.S. starting in August–but I’m not inclined to be snippy about them, because it happens that I grew up reading abridged novels, an experience that did me no harm whatsoever….
To read the whole thing, go here.