What exactly does abridged mean?

[kelby_lake]

Is it just condensing the classics and cutting out the very long bits or does it tone down any of it?

Currently reading (because it's all they had in the library):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hunchback-Notre-Dame-Puffin-Classics/dp/0140382534/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265134848&sr=1-1

And I wondered if there was a marked difference. There aren't any long passages about architecture but is there anything else missing?

[PeterL]

Exactly what is cut depends on the publisher and editor. The well edited "condesced books" are almost indistinguishable from the complete book.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Oh stay well away from abridged versions of anything (apart from maybe Dickens, tee, hee). I mean the link you posted has The Hunchback of Notre Dame at 320 pages, my copy, which has fairly small print too, clocks in at 501 pages! Abridged versions are the devil.

[kiki1982]

My French Livre de Poche edition (paperback) has 612 pages excluding all the chronology and introduction. With footnotes.

I don't know whether they can make it really shorter by translating it into English, but I guess that footnotes of about half a page sometimes add to the overall amount of pages.

After reading Les Misérables in a grand total of 300 pages in my teens and then reading the original at 1600, I have decided to avoid abridged versions. The two together look quite funny though. You never know what they take out, unless you know the work and just want it for a re-read. I d have to addin my defence that I didn't know it was such a huge book...

Certainly Hugo is so intricate that everything has its importance... Dumas could still be good sometimes I can imagine (just like Dickens ;)). Although Dumas keeps your interest.

[LitNetIsGreat]

It is funny that you should mention Les Miserables as I also bought the abridged version quite by accident in my late youth. My version has a miserable;) 227 pages!

[kiki1982]

It is funny that you should mention Les Miserables as I also bought the abridged version quite by accident in my late youth. My version has a miserable;) 227 pages!

:eek: How did they manage that?

My version had 300, but is a little bigger than a paperback so I guess about 400 in normal size... Still, it's great to still have that illusion in youth isn't it? Fortunately I didn't take the book to my French oral exam, because my teacher would not only have seen it was in Dutch, but also that it couldn't have been the original one :lol:. I don't think she ever believed me, as my French was abominable and I later read about 30 pages of The Hunchback without really getting one word (no kidding).

[JuniperWoolf]

I accidently bought an abriged version of Faust, which sucks because I'm poor and can't afford to go around trowing money at abriged books. They'd cut out entire acts.

[dfloyd]

If an author is worth reading, he should be read in his entirity. Abridged versions are an abomination.

[LitNetIsGreat]

How did they manage that?

I've no idea, it's a Penguin old edition. I didn't know that the original was so long - what 1600 pages? I thought it was quite heavily abridged but I didn't think by so so much.