Here's a thought, which as a legal scholar you might opine on. Has Puffin not committed fraud? They are selling these works "by" Roahld Dahl, but they have altered the prose. As you point out, this is not editing, as authors are given the right to accept or reject edits prior to publication. In this case, the author is dead, and the text has been changed both by removing passages, and by replacing passages. If they were simply removing them, they should have to add "abridged" to the cover, I would think. Since they are also changing the text by inserting their own, then they should have to say "based on the work of" rather than "by". Or am I missing something? And if I'm not, could Puffin not be dragged into court over this matter, for instance in a class action suit by defrauded customers?
I'm most disappointed by the counter-revolutionary backsliding of Penguin. Their corrections of Dahl's text were doubleplusgood dusckspeak. For example, I love changing Kipling's India to Steinbeck's California. Obviously necessary. Next up will be the performance of the new Hamlet in which the legitimacy of General Secretary Claudius will be denounced by his nephew at the all-Denmark 20th Party People's Congress followed by a new adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons in which the Marquess de Metrteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont enthuse about their upcoming empathy awareness workshops. All excellent ideas because the only way to enhance social emancipation is to rewrite history so that the need for it never existed. Therefore I'm particularly excited by the new edition of The Iliad which ends with the marriage of Achilles and Hector.
So glad I've never attempted to publish fiction (poetry might be even worse): my experience in dealing with academic publishers in the UK (above all Hart in Oxford, but bigger and smaller names too) has been superb, both as an author and as reviewer for others' book proposals: quick to respond, courteous, appreciative. But I was one of a pair of Series Editors for a heavweight law publisher for about a decade, supposedly making suggestions and comments on the specific construction law list. We just got to know the editorial contact running the list and within less than a year they were moved within the company to a quite different area. Hopeless for the company and for us!
Here's a thought, which as a legal scholar you might opine on. Has Puffin not committed fraud? They are selling these works "by" Roahld Dahl, but they have altered the prose. As you point out, this is not editing, as authors are given the right to accept or reject edits prior to publication. In this case, the author is dead, and the text has been changed both by removing passages, and by replacing passages. If they were simply removing them, they should have to add "abridged" to the cover, I would think. Since they are also changing the text by inserting their own, then they should have to say "based on the work of" rather than "by". Or am I missing something? And if I'm not, could Puffin not be dragged into court over this matter, for instance in a class action suit by defrauded customers?
I'm most disappointed by the counter-revolutionary backsliding of Penguin. Their corrections of Dahl's text were doubleplusgood dusckspeak. For example, I love changing Kipling's India to Steinbeck's California. Obviously necessary. Next up will be the performance of the new Hamlet in which the legitimacy of General Secretary Claudius will be denounced by his nephew at the all-Denmark 20th Party People's Congress followed by a new adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons in which the Marquess de Metrteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont enthuse about their upcoming empathy awareness workshops. All excellent ideas because the only way to enhance social emancipation is to rewrite history so that the need for it never existed. Therefore I'm particularly excited by the new edition of The Iliad which ends with the marriage of Achilles and Hector.
So glad I've never attempted to publish fiction (poetry might be even worse): my experience in dealing with academic publishers in the UK (above all Hart in Oxford, but bigger and smaller names too) has been superb, both as an author and as reviewer for others' book proposals: quick to respond, courteous, appreciative. But I was one of a pair of Series Editors for a heavweight law publisher for about a decade, supposedly making suggestions and comments on the specific construction law list. We just got to know the editorial contact running the list and within less than a year they were moved within the company to a quite different area. Hopeless for the company and for us!