Unabridged vs. Abridged

Now that I have a couple of unabridged books, I can start checking for myself what the differences are. This chart from The Friends of the Chalet School website lists the extent of the cuts from each book (Thanks, @Sakerfalcon). Has anyone made any comparisons? Has anyone noticed any particularly glaring gaps in the Armada editions?

I've never noticed glaring gaps in the Armada editions, but I did read them first, so they'd be less noticeable to me.

I am committed to getting the GGBP version of each book because I do like the unabridged stories better. I'm not even exactly sure why. Just spending more time in the Chalet School? They are defintely more satisfying to me for whatever reason. I like the extra material in the GGBP books, but it doesn't mean enough to me to get that version if it were not the surest way right now to get the unabridged story. Not sure what I'd do with my GGBP copies if a complete set of the Chambers hardbacks were to fall into my library. Very doubtful that I'll ever find out :-).

I'll be very interested in comments from other folks who have more experience in the matter. Maybe I'll read one of the few books that I own in both versions this weekend as a "study" assignment.

Has anyone noticed any particularly glaring gaps in the Armada editions?

For me, it's more the other way around - I read the Armadas first as a kid, and have only come across unabridged versions more recently. So I keep noticing bits that are completely new to me. (Apparently I reread the books often enough as a kid that I'm still familiar enough with them that the "extra" bits jump out at me.)

I read the Armadas first as a kid, and have only come across unabridged versions more recently

Same here - I read the Armada versions as a kid and started collecting those and rereading as an adult. Then I saw discussion about the cuts made in the Armada versions so I've been grabbing up the old hardcovers (and a few GBBs) whenever I see them. Some don't make much difference, but a few books were cut a lot and it's noticeable when I read the hardcover. Suddenly there are all these scenes and chapters I didn't know about! Characters who seemed to get married rather out of the blue are given the chance to meet their fiance before announcing the engagement!

Three Go to the Chalet School was a revelation. I've got a hardcover of School at the Chalet on Mount TBR and I'm looking forward to reading the full text of that.

>4 archerygirl:

I always wondered where those fiances came from. Has Three Go to the Chalet School been published by GGB yet? I'd really like to read the uncut version of that.

>5 SylviaC:: They published it in 2007, but it has gone out of print. However, they may eventually issue it again, as they have with Bride and CS in the Oberland. There's one second-hand copy listed on amazon uk at the moment for a reasonable-ish price, but adding shipping to North America could be costly.

I got my GGBP copy of Three Go to the Chalet School this year. I paid the price for it being currently out of print, though. I do think that they will publish it again, I was just too impatient to wait.

4> I resigned myself to not owing a single of the hardbacks a long time ago - they just are not readily available at reasonable prices. GGBP editions have helped me feel less deprived as a result of that decision.

I've noticed some choppiness in a few books, and storylines that are started then dropped, or girls who appear with no introduction halfway through a book. It's hard to tell whether such incidents are due to abridgement or just EBD's writing. One that stands out for me is Peggy of the Chalet School, although the chart says the cuts are minor.

>5 SylviaC:: Yup, the fiances probably come from the missing bits in the books with big cuts :-D There's a lovely chapter about Biddy going for coffee and getting to know her fiance in Three Go. I always thought it was a bit odd that she decided to marry someone just because he saved one of the girls from drowning!

>7 MDGentleReader:: I was lucky because I was able to pick up a lot at a really good price in a second hand bookshop where the ladies know me very well and held things back for me. It's the thing I miss most about moving! Since then I've been picking up the odd ones when I spot them and I did budget a bit of money to get a copy of The School and the Chalet. Most of the prices for hardcovers online in places like Abebooks are terrifying.

I went through the chart on the Friends of the Chalet School site. To replace all my books that have significant cuts, plus a couple that are in bad shape, it would take 18 books. That seems like a manageable number. Some of them still haven't been published by GGB, and some are out of print again, so it would be spread out over several years. They won't all look nice and uniform, but that has never been a concern for me.

I'll have to check that website; I'd like to know which ones have significant cuts. I'm not obsessive enough to want originals or first editions of every book, even if the finances permitted it, but would be willing over time to splash out on a few titles that have big cuts.

One that always struck me as being very anaemic is Chalet School Fete. There is so little that actually seems to happen in that book.

GGB has published very, very few, relatively speaking. From my own POV, I wish they would concentrate on the originals rather than the fill-ins, and leave those for later. It's very simple for authors to self-publish, and these would be books that would market themselves via fan sites.

I wish that GGB would go for the ones that had the biggest cuts when Armada published them. I wonder how they decide which ones to publish.

I went to the website to see if they accepted suggestions for what to publish. I did not find anything. I do think that I read that they started with the hardest to find in the second hand market and then some of the more imporant ones. I also found that they have started publishing e-books - I knew that it was coming. I am pretty sure they committed to subsequent CS books to also come out in e-format.

So far, all £7.00

The School at the Chalet by Elinor Brent-Dyer (no 1)
The Chalet Girls in Camp by Elinor Brent-Dyer (no 8)
The Chalet School in Exile by Elinor Brent-Dyer (no 14) - a good one to have

A Difficult Term for the Chalet School by Lisa Townsend

The latest Chalet School title is set between Three Go to the Chalet School and The Chalet School and the Island.

>11 Chatterbox:

There may be legal issues with self-publishing fill-ins, as it would involve using characters that are still under copyright. (I'm not a lawyer - I'm just basing this on what I know of Sherlock Holmes.) As far as I know GGBP owns the copyright, so they would probably need to give permission - and in that case they would probably prefer to publish themselves anyway, to ensure that there is consistency both with respect to quality and to events between books. (Or at least as consistent as EBD herself is!)

>13 MDGentleReader:

At least 2 of those came out in 2011 as I just checked when I bought them, and as far as I remember all 4 came out within a few months of each other. I'm pretty sure others have come out in print since then (over the last 18 months or so.)

I know that making ebooks is a bit more complicated than most people assume, particularly if you want the ebook to look okay on different devices. (A friend of mine has done it for a few, and I have listened to her complaints on the matter.) You can't just take a Word or pdf file and hope for the best. So I could believe that GGBP has decided to concentrate on the physical copies, particularly if the ebooks haven't sold much.

>11 Chatterbox:: Chalet School fete is the second half of The Chalet School and the Lintons; Armada split Lintons into two books when they published it. That is probably why it seems a bit lacking by comparison to other titles. The new Chalet School was also split, into New and United Chalet School.

>13 MDGentleReader:: You can email them; the address is on the GGBP site. They do respond, and I think they are quite keen to know of titles that there is a particular demand for.

Three more CS reprints are scheduled for this autumn, so they do seem to have picked up the pace a bit after a dry spell.

>15 Sakerfalcon:

Just to clarify, Chalet School Fete is the second half of A Genius at the Chalet School. I think A Rebel at the the Chalet School was the second half of Lintons.

>16 Scorbet:: You're right! Morning brain ...

Thanks for clarifying on #15 & #16!

I've read both versions of The School at the Chalet together, noting the changes. No plot points were removed, but there were lots of other cuts, and a few small revisions. Here's my synopsis:

•Some information that helps to round out the characters, and provide them with more background was removed.

•Some of the descriptions of scenery, locations, and history were shortened.

•Almost any mention of events that were current at the time of the original publication (1925), as well as book and song titles were cut. (The abridgement was done in 1967.)

•All mention of Joey's admiration for Napoleon was removed, which is odd since it comes up frequently in other books in the series.

•Any mention of kissing or displays of affection between the girls was removed.

•Occasional phrases, sentences and paragraphs that weren't important to the plot were deleted.

There were also small changes to time sensitive information, such as updating vocabulary and money. Herr Rittermeister von Eschenau is reduced to Herr von Eschenau, which is also odd, because the title is relevant later in the series.

I've read and compared both versions of Jo of the Chalet School. Once again, a lot was removed in the abridgement, but no plot points. This time the cuts weren't as easily categorized. Most of them were just occasional sentences and phrases. There were, however, some more notable cuts:

•Almost two full pages were removed which consisted of Madge reading some writing of Jo's, and discussing it with Jem.

•One full page about the girls singing during the flood.

•A lot has been removed from the chapter about the girls' hobbies.

•Some details of treatments of illnesses are removed or simplified.

•Much of the mention of the treatment of servants was removed, even when positive.

•Many descriptions of hair are removed, and a few of clothing. It is actually an improvement in the case of the hair, as EBD did get rather repetitive about it.

There were also some minor updates in vocabulary.

The Princess of the Chalet School. The Armada version has some fairly extensive cuts in the first half , but hardly anything significant in the second. The biggest cuts are paragraphs and whole pages that help to flesh out some of the characters:

•Almost a page about Madge climbing a tree.

•Many paragraphs about Matron Webb that add a bit more dimension to her character, and also show her to be even more unpleasant. Also more staff response to her behaviour.

•Some bits that tell us more about Margia Stevens, including a full page about her background and talent.

•A couple of pages that contain Grizel's main appearance in this book.

•A passage about Madge's hopes for Juliet's future.

•A paragraph that explains the motivation of one of the villains.

All of these passages give the original book richer characterization. I think this one has fewer cuts overall than the first two books, but some of them are pretty significant. I'm looking forward now to comparing editions of The Head Girl of the Chalet School, which had whole chapters removed in the abridgement.

I wonder if someday I'll look back on this and ask if there wasn't a better way I could have been spending my time.

No!

The Head-Girl of the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. Once again, I'm comparing a Chambers reprint with an abridged Armada edition. Head-Girl was originally published in 1928, and abridged in 1970. I like this book overall, and think it is fairly significant in the development of the series, but I really don't care much for Grizel. The cuts in this book are significant in that whole chapters are deleted.

•Chapter 2 (On the Journey) is deleted, with a few bits from the beginning and the end added to the start of Chapter 3. An 11 page train trip is condensed into 1 1/2 pages. I've always wondered about The Stuffer and Maria, who are mentioned in a later book, and now I've finally tracked them down to this deleted chapter. I consider the removal of this chapter the single most significant alteration.

•Chapter 9 (A Quiet Evening) and Chapter 11 (Not Much) are both completely cut out. Both are chapters that focus on character development rather than plot development—talking rather than action.

Other cuts which are less extreme, but still notable:

•One page about Jo having a nightmare

•A passage about TB

•A discussion about the value of schillings

•Cornelia putting ants in a classroom

•One page of Grizel and Jo recounting their adventure with Frau Berlin from earlier in the book

And one little alteration that caught my interest was that Mr. Lannis' car changed from a Hispaniola to a Mercedes-Benz.

I only have Armada versions of the next three books in the series, so those will just be straight reads. Which will be much more relaxing.

Can anyone tell me how to pronounce "Grizel"?

With the emphasis on the second syllable, as if it's spelled Grizelle. She insists at one point that it isn't pronounced as grizzle (to rhyme with drizzle).

Thanks. I thought it might be something like that, since Joey sometimes calls her Griselda. I keep wanting to put a T in the middle, making it sound like "Gritzle".

25> I wondered why I felt I knew the answer to that. I retain information pretty well, but I find that as I get older that I am less able to remember where I got the information. I generally have some sort of marker for the reliability of whatever bit of info I have - in this case, I was very sure of my asnwer. Which book? That it was Grizel herself that told us? Lost in the mists of time. And I only started reading them in the last year or two!

As a kid I always pronounced it "grizzle" in my head; only much later did I get a copy of whichever book it is where she clarifies the pronunciation! Over the years, I managed to collect most of the Armada paperbacks (quite the accomplishment for an American kid only in Ireland for the occasional summer holiday) and have been working on collecting the GGBP versions as they come out. I can't say why I love the CS but I do, and reread the whole series every couple of years when I am home.

The Chalet Girls in Camp. The Friends of the Chalet School chart says the Armada version of this is uncut, with only odd words updated. I had the Armada and the Girls Gone By editions, but didn't compare them as closely as usual, because they were practically the same. Most of the differences were minimal, just a few words changed. The only real cut I could find was the removal of a passage in which Miss Wilson talks about a woman's first work being tending to to her family. Not surprising that that should have been removed in a 1969 abridgement.

I now have a hardcover copy of Eustacia goes to the Chalet School (Dymock's Australian edition), so I compared it with my Armada paperback. There were a lot of very minor cuts of single sentences and short paragraphs. The biggest cuts were:

•more information about the deaths of Eustacia's parents.
•various remembrances of incidents in previous books.
•some of Jo's early reactions to Eustacia.
•some conversations about Madge's and Gisela's families.
•most of Mademoiselle's talk after Eustacia slapped Kitty, including her statement that it does not matter if boys hit one another, but girls must never do that.
•most of Madge's brief visit to the school, including the resolution of the feud between the Fourth and the Fifth.
•a lot of passages from the chapters about the half-term trip, including a two and a half page long story that Jo told the girls.
•explanation of where Miss Maynard went.

Eustacia is one of my favourite books and characters in the series. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on an unabridged copy.

I think I got a little carried away with this one.

The New House at the Chalet School. I compared the Armada abridgement of 1980 with the 2008 Girls Gone By edition, which contains the original 1935 Chambers text.

While the cuts in the abridgement are not extensive, a few are fairly important, although they do not affect continuity. This is the first abridgement in which I've noticed a "dumbing down" of the story. My overall impression is that the Armada edition was aimed at a slightly younger audience than the original. It also seems like there was an attempt to make the abridged story more self-contained by limiting the number and extent of references to previous books in the series.

There were far more changes in vocabulary than I've seen in the other Armadas. There are updates, like "pi-jaw" to "lecture", and "recked nothing of that" to "cared nothing for that", and there are many simplifications, like "bisects" to "cuts in two", "abode" to "home", and "scrutator" to "examiner".

The most important cuts were:

•some of the details from Margot Venables' story, including reference to her husband drinking;
•information about the death of the Russell parents and Margot's estrangement from them;
•almost a page about the plans of the girls, and Jo's concerns about her own future.

Some other cuts were:

•several references to events in previous books;
•most references to religion;
•Jo's reflections on her new accommodations;
•Matey warning Jo not to mess with her skin;
•the first telling of Margot's story;
•Jem's lecture to Jo at the beginning of chapter 5;
•discussion between Jem and Margot about her children and immediate plans;
•a later passage about Margot's health;
•Gillian trying to convince Margia not to follow through on her plan;
•long description of dormitory layout;
•a couple of paragraphs about Matron Besly's thoughts;
•Jo's wakefulness before the storm;
•almost two pages of Freda telling a Tyrolean legend;
•part of Jo's performance at the concert.

I went back to Rivals of the Chalet School because I found a 1955 Chambers reprint to compare with the 1968 Armada abridgement. The book was originally published by Chambers in 1929. I was disappointed to discover that the original version sheds no more light on Miss Browne's character than the Armada version does. Most of the deletions really are minor, and anyone reading the Armada version is not missing much.

The most notable (but still minor) cuts are:

•reviews of Elisaveta's and Robin's backgrounds.

•a page-long discussion between Jo and Mary about how to end the feud.

•a couple of passages about Maureen Donovan, a St. Scholastika's student.

•a bit about what they did in the mountain village during their long hike after being marooned.

•details about Guides and Miss Browne's opposition to them.

•some details of the skating rescue.

•more about everyone's anxiety during Jo's illness.

I really like Rivals despite only having read the Armada version; I hadn't realised it was relatively untouched. Good to know, although of course I will be buying a complete version when GGBP get around to issuing it!

Ditto.

I got the 1960 Chambers reprint of Jo Returns to the Chalet School, so I compared it with the abridged Armada version. I could get through this project faster is I didn't keep going back when I acquire another unabridged book. I'm all set for the next dozen books, though.

Almost all of the changes to wording were just to update vocabulary. Most of the cuts were relatively minor, usually single paragraphs about characters' illnesses or weak constitutions, or references to events in previous books. There was one really long cut, and a couple of shorter ones that removed interesting information:

•a five page phone conversation between Jo and Madge

•a segment on the qualifications of the three matrons

•a passage in which Stacie regrets the actions that led to her disability - this is actually a very rare insight into Stacie's post-accident thoughts.

I really hope that GGBP reissue Jo returns soon, as it is one of the few CS titles that I don't own at all. I must have read it as a teen but I don't remember it. Still, that means it will be a nice surprise when I do finally get a copy!

The Chalet School in Exile by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. I compared the 1967 Armada abridgement with a 1950 Chambers reprint. While there was some major cutting in the middle of the book, the rest of it was much more intact than I expected. The first few chapters have several very minor cuts, which really don't affect the flow of the story, and next to nothing is removed from the final six chapters. The biggest, most glaring cut is the removal of the entire chapter immediately following the escape from Austria. While that chapter is not highly significant to the plot, is is quite significant as far as characters are concerned. Other cuts are:

•various mentions of former students throughout the book;
•a few brief political bits;
•several passages from the picnic near the cave episode;
•commentary on Grizel's personality;
•bits and pieces of the planning meeting for moving the school;
•scattered passages from the escape chapters that would add up to about 9 or 10 pages of text;
•parts of letters from Marie and Miss Stewart;
•a conversation between Jo and Marie;
•various passages of background of the Chester and Lucy families;
•a speech about the Chalet School Peace League;
•a few odds and ends of the opening day of the new school.

My first reaction is that I would have benefited from the background on the Chester and Lucy families. I was confused about the relationship for a bit.

It does help. There are the Ozannes, too, but there's not as much about them.

On my own reading thread, someone asked me some questions about the abridgement of the Chalet School books. I'm cross-posting my response here.

I've been considering the abridgement process a good bit, and have been drawing some tentative conclusions. Broadly, I would say that they are being edited for length and to tighten the stories up. There is no denying that Elinor M. Brent-Dyer could be repetitive, going back over the same information more than once in a book, and using certain favourite phrases across different books. A lot of bits that get cut are references to characters and events from other books in the series. This is a loss for followers of the series, but make the individual books more stand-alone for readers who only pick up the odd one.

Some cuts and vocabulary changes are made to modernize. The most notable would be references to "delicacy" and medical treatments that would not be relevant to readers in the 1970s and 80s, as well as occasional mention of current events, politics, and brand names. Those last three are rare, though, as only the wartime books are specifically dated. There are also a few cuts that reflect changing social attitudes. Only one of the ones that I've reviewed so far seems to have been edited to appeal to a younger audience.

A couple of books have so many tiny deletions of words and phrases that it looks like an editor was scrambling to meet a word count. Despite that, it doesn't seem like they were striving for a standard size. Many of the final Armada versions run between 150 and 180 pages, but some go well over 200 (all using similar font sizes and margins). Furthermore, a few originals were split up and published as two thin Armada books. And it should be noted that not all the books in the series were abridged. I haven't yet detected any pattern to the selection of books for abridgement.

The quality of abridgement varies from book to book. Despite the large amounts removed from The Chalet School in Exile, it was very well done. I would never have known anything was missing if I hadn't been told. The Head Girl of the Chalet School, however, seems choppy. In the abridged version, it was on of my least favourites, but on reading the original version, it moved up considerably on my list. Since very many of the people who read the series now first got hooked on the Armada versions, the abridgements can't have done too much harm, overall. But it is always nice to know the whole story.

I've finished my comparison read of the Chambers and Armada versions of The Highland Twins at the Chalet School. This is another wartime entry in the series, originally published in 1942. It is one of the stronger books in the series, especially in the original version. The plot is distinctly war-related, and at times requires a firm suspension of disbelief.

In my earlier comparisons, I made lists of the most notable deletions in the abridgement. It is not possible for me to do that this time, because the deletions are so extensive that I just wouldn't know where to start. A rough calculation shows that about 40% of the text has been removed. The copyright page of my Armada edition doesn't give any indication at all that the text is not complete. The deletions run the gamut from single words, sentences, and paragraphs, to pages and entire chapters. A subplot concerning an important character from some previous books was completely removed, as well as big chunks of the main plot. Events and characters too numerous to list are missing.

There is, however, one significant improvement in the Armada version. The speech of the main characters is spelled normally, instead of in a horrible rendition of a Scottish accent. The Chambers version is full of such lines as: "I haf nefer peen so tired in my life pefore" and the startling "And you were nearly ass bad ass me, Robin." It is painful to read.

I would recommend that anyone who can find a Chambers or Girls Gone By version of this one read it instead of the Armada. Unfortunately, they are very hard to find at any sort of reasonable price. And, of course, you will have to put up with that accent.

I am eagerly awaiting the GGBP version of The Highland Twins at the Chalet School.

Thanks for your thoughtful remarks on the abridgements. I am one who would never have gotten started on the Chalet School books if it weren't for the Armada versions.

I found a Chambers hardcover of Exploits of the Chalet Girls, so was able to go back and compare it with the Armada edition. The Friends of the Chalet School chart describes it as "uncut". I found several very small cuts (sentences and short paragraphs), mainly transitions, elaborations, and asides. There were only two cuts worth mentioning, each about half a page long:

• Madge tells Elsie Carr that her sister Lilias is getting better and will probably be able to go back to England in the spring.

• a passage about Matron having a "big jorum of senna" for the girls who over-indulged at a party.

The descriptions of their entertainments remain mostly intact, in all of their excruciating details. Tableaux, games evening, and Christmas pageant.

Exploits is one of my favourites in the series. I have an Armada copy so I'm glad to hear that the cuts are nothing major. (Of course I will buy a GGBP copy when they get around to republishing it!)

I'm currently waiting for my copy of Barbara to arrive, which will replace my Armada copy.

Lavender Laughs at the Chalet School (Lavender Leigh at the Chalet School) by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. Like most of the wartime books, this is another strong entry in the series. I compared the Girls Gone By edition of Lavender Laughs(copied from the 1943 original) with the Armada version of Lavender Leigh (abridged in 1988). There were many, many small cuts and a few big ones.

I noticed in this one that there were some alterations to the text, beyond the usual vocabulary updates. Several times the names of the speakers were changed, for no apparent reason. Sometimes sentences or phrases were reworded, and paragraphs or even pages were collapsed down to one or two summarizing sentences. One little change that irked me was that in the GGB version, a girl says that she would like to be a doctor, but in the Armada version she wants to be a games mistress. The Armada edition is supposed to be the more "modern" version, so why on earth would that have been changed?

There were a couple of cuts that I felt were significant to the development of the story:
• the staff discussing Lavender's personality and schoolwork, and how to proceed with her;
• Lavender's realization that she could write her own stories, and first attempt at writing (a pretty big step in her character development).

Some of the other big cuts didn't directly affect the storyline, although the material was interesting, and often relevant to the series as a whole:
• lots of mentions of characters from previous books, and updates on their lives;
• the background of the McNab/Marilliar family;
• Jesanne and Lois' backstory, with teasers for The Lost Staircase;
• a six and a half page discussion between Robin and Daisy (two chapters were compressed into one here);
• about half of Lavender's stay in the San;
• about one third of the section where the girls visit Jo's house at half term.

I've been reading my new, unabridged edition of Trials for the Chalet School. As I'd read the Armada edition just a few weeks before, I could see just how severe the cuts were. Whole chapters were left out, including one containing a major incident, and of course we lose a lot of character development. Yet they didn't cut the (IMO) overlong description of the pantomime, which I felt didn't need scene-by-scene coverage. Perhaps there are a few too many incidents packed into the full version, but it's certainly preferable to the drastically shortened Armada edition.

>41 SylviaC: That one is headed my way now! Once I have it, I'll have unabridged copies of all the ones with major cuts. I just need two more of the ones with minor cuts. It confuses me when they leave out plot points and character development, but always include the entertainments in all of their excruciating detail.

it was i have a lot of the ones published by armana never read or seen the ones without the missing parts wish i could

>28 ForeignCircus: I am the same as you with having the Armada books same with Grizel's name even now I am not sure how to pronounce her name. I am in my 50's and I still love reading the CS books and have just got my first 5 GGBP Fill in books

>51 Rosemary_Carroll: I hope you enjoy the fill-ins! I've enjoyed pretty well all of the GGBP ones.