A few years back, when I was in library school, I had a publishing class in which we were supposed to take a book and talk about how we would go about the business of publishing it, were it submitted for publication today. The book I chose was So You Want To Be A Wizard, and your web site was a trove of information. I remember considerations of changing technology and culture being part of my "suggested" revisions for the hypothetical manuscript. And now, reading this post, I can see how you are going about it in real life.
The business of updating and changing previously published books bothers me as a reader, but it's as old as writing. In the 18th century Samuel Richardson finoodled constantly with Pamela, trying to appease his audience by changing the way she fainted. Better to have her land face up or face down? In the 20th century Tolkien significantly rewrote a portion of The Hobbit to bring it more in-line with The Lord of the Rings (and he was still fiddling with it up to the time of his death, from what I've heard). T. H. White wrote Madam Mim out of the The Sword In the Stone altogether, though she was, amusingly enough, kept for the Disney adaptation.
It happens, I see the need for it, and it's darned interesting to see how the author goes about it, but I can't help finding it a little sad. Even if the book is meant to take place in an eternal now, like the Wizard books, I still tend to see that now as inherently shaped by the "when" in which it was written: just a part of the book's spirit. So my approach (and obviously this varies, depending on the book in question) is often to seek out an older edition where I can...
That’s personal, of course. Whether I would do that for a young reader to whom I was giving the book as a present is another matter.
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The business of updating and changing previously published books bothers me as a reader, but it's as old as writing. In the 18th century Samuel Richardson finoodled constantly with Pamela, trying to appease his audience by changing the way she fainted. Better to have her land face up or face down? In the 20th century Tolkien significantly rewrote a portion of The Hobbit to bring it more in-line with The Lord of the Rings (and he was still fiddling with it up to the time of his death, from what I've heard). T. H. White wrote Madam Mim out of the The Sword In the Stone altogether, though she was, amusingly enough, kept for the Disney adaptation.
It happens, I see the need for it, and it's darned interesting to see how the author goes about it, but I can't help finding it a little sad. Even if the book is meant to take place in an eternal now, like the Wizard books, I still tend to see that now as inherently shaped by the "when" in which it was written: just a part of the book's spirit. So my approach (and obviously this varies, depending on the book in question) is often to seek out an older edition where I can...
That’s personal, of course. Whether I would do that for a young reader to whom I was giving the book as a present is another matter.