1cartographer144
Someone had to start it! I just finished Adventures of Tom Sawyer and decided to move straight into the companion Benton illustrated Huckleberry Finn. This edition has an interesting editorial quirk by Bernard DeVoto who decided to reinsert a chapter that was in the original manuscript but excluded from first trade editions and put instead into Life on the Mississippi. This passage is differentiated from the main text by a slightly different type (transition occurs at page 120). Without reading the monthly letter or introduction, which I did not at first, you would have no idea and it just looks like really inconsistent press work. I usually refrain from reading intros and monthly letters until after I have read the book unless it is one that I am already intimately familiar with and I don’t fear spoilers or having my perception colored by a critic so immediately before diving in. This is also a monster introduction by DeVoto and it looked like a momentum killer. The type change bothered me for a day before I remembered the monthly letter usually explains such oddities.
2Django6924
Not the only time the LEC courted reader confusion/disappointment in the attempt to restore a writer's original vision. Their edition of Great Expectations, egged on by a remark made by George Bernard Shaw, printed the original ending Dickens had written, which was rather melancholy (I won't go into particulars as it would be a spoiler). Dickens' good friend Bulwer-Lytton convinced him the public would not be amused, so Dickens wrote the hopeful ending which was in the first and many subsequent editions.
Whether the reception from the subscribers was mostly negative, or whether it was GBS's own admission in his introduction that the revised ending was better, two years later when the HP edition of the book was sent out, the happ(ier) revised ending was the one used.
Whether the reception from the subscribers was mostly negative, or whether it was GBS's own admission in his introduction that the revised ending was better, two years later when the HP edition of the book was sent out, the happ(ier) revised ending was the one used.
3BuzzBuzzard
I am half way through the LEC All the King's Men. What a great story and edition! The signature from a Pulitzer Prize winner is an added bonus. Seems like $500 for this set is a very good deal.
Join to post
