Do you read edited/abridged edtions? How can you tell?

[Pollopicu]

...and how can you tell the difference between an abridged and an unabridged edition if you don't know how many pages it's suppose to have to begin with?

I just bought a copy of "The Prince" by Bantam classics and after paying for it I noticed on the bottom in tiny print it said "edited". :rage:

For me personally, if it's going to be edited or abridged, I rather then just not read. I want to see it all and I want to feel it all.. if's, and's and but's included. I have a hard enough time accepting translations since I don't have a choice.
If there's a novel I want to read and it's 1200 pages, either I'll choose to read it or I don't. I never opt for the abridged/edited version. I would feel like I can't claim to have read the book if I didn't read the original intended edition.

Am I correct in saying that not all books which have been edited or abridged say it inside? are there any tricks to finding out which ones are and which aren't?
Usually the people (kids) who work at bookstores are so brain-dead that it's no use asking.


Today I also found a copy of "The Trial", but it looked so thin that I thought it couldn't possibly be the original unedited version of the novel, so I didn't buy it. This has been happening to me a lot with quite a few reads. help.

[JBI]

Edited doesn't mean abridged - especially on old texts, editing deals with how the text is preserved in different versions, and how things are translated. I doubt your Prince was abridged unless it says so - generally you pay a little extra for good editors of the text.

As for the Trial, it has gone through many edits, since the actual manuscript wasn't finished, at it was more fragment than anything at the time of Kafka's death - most classic works have some textual editing, unless a definitive, modern English/text language version exists.

As for abridgment, those will most likely say on the back cover if they are the old penguin abridgments, or somewhere else on the text if they aren't. Generally you can tell by length though - I dunno though, I thought abridging had gone out of fashion, at least in the textual format - though I hear it is still popular in audio format.

[Manchegan]

i feel the same way, pollopico. That's why I was so angry when I finished a 900 page version of war and peace. I was all proud of myself for reading something so intimidating without it even being a school assignment....and then i find out my version was abridged.

I looked online, and i think i only missed out on a 200 page post script about history. But how can i be sure that other things weren't cut from the middle?

I don't feel like rereading the entire thing anytime soon, but i would have gladly read tolstoys thoughts on history at the time. I picked it up cause i wanted to get a real feel for tolstoy; i put it down feeling cheated.

[billl]

I recently saw an edited version of Richard Burton's Arabian Nights, vol. 1, so I didn't buy that even though it was pretty cheap at a used bookstore. Anybody think I should have bought it?

I've also recently encountered 2 different abridged version of Gibbons' Fall of Rome thing, and I'm worried that, if I find that I really like it half-way through (just a one book version), that I'll wish I had just gotten started on the first volume of the whole thing.

[Pollopicu]

JBI, thank you for clearing that up. I have tried to look for "abridged and unabridged" labels on books but very rarely I find them. Maybe only in two so far.

manchegan, I thought the same thing happened to me when I was reading "The Count of Monte Cristo".
When it occurred to me I could be reading an abridged version of it, I frantically searched online, and thank goodness I was reading the the full edition. I would have been so livid, and it would have had less worth, to me.
I hear of people who actually read cliff notes of works. Why even bother?


I recently saw an edited version of Richard Burton's Arabian Nights, vol. 1, so I didn't buy that even though it was pretty cheap at a used bookstore. Anybody think I should have bought it?

I've also recently encountered 2 different abridged version of Gibbons' Fall of Rome thing, and I'm worried that, if I find that I really like it half-way through (just a one book version), that I'll wish I had just gotten started on the first volume of the whole thing.That's exactly the reason why I have to read the full version.

[kiki1982]

No. Everything in full. I'm put off by abridged or seleted versions. I started to read The Canterbury Tales and was put off by the 'selection'. I just don't think it ever makes up the total picture, so I rather don't get the detailed picture.

Normally 'abridged or unabridged' should be somewhere on the cover or on the first page inside, with the translator or something... I don't think they're allowed to sell you any book under pretence that it is the full version if it is not.

As for things like The Trial. It is of course a problem that some things have different versions. Usually they should explain which (original) edition it is printed after. 'Text taken from the ... edition, [editor], [year]'. So if there are definite differences, they should be clear. I'm sure that one can find info on that on the net somewhere. (there are always fans who occupy themselves with that)

'Edited' can also mean, as was said here too, that something was done to the text, but not necessarily taken parts out. For example, Defoe can be put in modern spelling, or the strangest bits of spelling can have been taken out, some words that seem to be missing because of printing faults in the original edition the text was taken from can have been put in in square brackets and more of that meddling without actually taking out bits of text.

If you really want to know if you have an unabridged version, then look first for the original in the original language on amazon or so. It aways lists the amount of pages and original language works are mostly not abridged.

[mal4mac]

I can't imagine why anyone would read abridged editions of classic novels like War & Peace or Don Quixote. But I am reading abridged version of the Bible. Although I have read the Iliad and Odyssey in full I don't feel like re-reading them in full. But I want to encounter Odysseus and gang again, so i will probably read an abridgment of some kind. R.K. Narayan has produced abridgements of the formidably long Hindu classics - I'll probably read them rather than the full versions.

In my experience modern publishers with any kind of reputation (Penguin, Oxford, Wordsworth, Everyman...) make it clear if the book they are publishing is an abridgment, usually on the cover. I don't think the above publishers print any abridgements of classic novels. They publish abridgements of Gibbon, Heroditus, and other "difficult" works.

I'm thinking of reading Gibbon but he's well down my list, has a reputation for difficult prose, and *extreme* length, so I'll probably go for the (inexpensive!) Wordsworth Classics abridgement. It it's *really* good then I can read the full version on my re-read. A classic isn't a classic unless it demands to be re-read.

Note - I did read an abridged collection of Montaigne's essays, and then decide to get the full version. I almost bought an abridged Don Quixote but I (thankfully!) bought the full Grossman translation. I started buying individual Shakespeare plays but decided I might as well buy the complete RSC Shakespeare - one of my better decisions.

Are there any works you found worth reading "in full" after reading/considering an abridgement? Have you got through Gibbon and it was all worth it? Or, vice versa, are there full works that you just couldn't get through, but made it through an abridgement with *some* pleasure?

[catatonic]

The version being sold of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night remains to be the abridged one, though there's nothing to indicate that anywhere in the editions that are out there.

I think there's a lot more of this going on in the publishing industry than the public ever suspects.

[kinkajou]

There was a time when I said "never" to abridgments. Then I tried reading The Count of Monte Cristo. After 400+ pages I threw it against the wall and rethought my attitude toward abridgments. I guess it depends on what you want from a book. Sometimes selections may not be such a bad thing - think Moby Dick. I read the whole thing but still, do we need know all that stuff about whaling? The rest of the book was still brilliant.

[blazeofglory]

It depends. At times I cannot read the original text like Ulysses. I have tried to think through the book several times but to no avail. And I resorted to the abridged one. I know I will miss so many things in the abridged one but I cannot help but to read the summarized or the simplified version of the same.

[wessexgirl]

I personally wouldn't choose abridgements if I had the choice, but I do listen to a lot of audio works, which are often abridged. If I like the book, I can go back to the original. However, as a Librarian, catering to a secondary school/sixth form, I see the usefulness of abridgements. I am constantly extolling the pleasures of good books to the students, but try thrusting the full version of something like The Count Of Monte Cristo, or War and Peace in front of someone who is not a great reader, and see where you get :lol:. We have lots of abridged versions for younger people, and what we call Quick Reads, which are cut down versions of all sorts of books, classic and modern, for less able readers. Who knows, if they like the book, they may progress on to the full version at a later stage. Having said that though, I had a student take out the full version of TCOMC for holiday reading, so good on him.

Incidentally, insulting bookstore staff isn't very nice. They may not be as informed as you would like, but as you say, they're young. I wouldn't expect them to be knowledgeable about all of their stock, they may be there because they need a job, not because they are keen on literature.

[BoSox]

i feel the same way, pollopico. That's why I was so angry when I finished a 900 page version of war and peace. I was all proud of myself for reading something so intimidating without it even being a school assignment....and then i find out my version was abridged.


That happened to me when I read Les Miserables by Hugo. As a teenager I picked up a hardback version thinking it was the full text, read all 700 hundred pages, flipped to the cover and wondered what abridged meant.
I was pissed.

[Nemo Neem]

Abridged versions take away from the original text.

[mayneverhave]

Abridged versions take away from the original text.

You can't very well add text to an abridged version

[Night_Lamp]

I see more and more of these on the bookstore shelves lately, it's likely because of the majority of readers short attention span. The books mentioned in the thread like Arabian Nights, Count, and the Gibbon are both close to 2 000 pages in my full editions.

Notice that the mighty Oprah book club (lit. snob snicker...) never recommended War and Peace.

[kiki1982]

Probaly never recommended something like Ivanhoe, the complete works of Shakespeare or Byron either?

Sorry, have to get off my snob-stool... :D

[Modest Proposal]

I have always felt it only justice to the author to read the full version. Anything you think or say about an abridged text is not really fair when it is not how the author wrote it.

I also only buy widescreen films. Otherwise, you are watching the abridged version--with what some editor thought was the most important part being shown.