The bizarre part is they appear to have reprinted a few Hadley Chase novels. Chase isn't just objectionable now, he was objectionable then. And infamous. I venture to say they could have gotten guidance on this point from any Rara-Avian. But even Chase doesn't deserve to be bowdlerized and we certainly deserve better.
James
----- Original Message -----
From: WALKER MARTIN
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2009 12:07
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Harlequin
When Bill Crider posted this nonsense from Harlequin I thought it was some type of joke. But I went to the website and saw it's no joke at all, in fact these people are deadly serious. I managed to restrain myself and left a comment complaining about such censorship. It might be interesting to see if they will censor our negative comments or even delete them from the site.
-------Walker Martin.
--- On Sat, 11/28/09, Bill Crider <macavityabc@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Bill Crider <macavityabc@gmail.com>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Harlequin
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, November 28, 2009, 11:29 AM
Here's what the Harlequin blog has to say about the "editing" of their crime
reprints.
"Remember, our intention was to publish the stories in their original form.
But once we immersed ourselves in the text, our eyes grew wide. Our jaws
dropped. Social behavior—such as hitting a woman—that would be considered
totally unacceptable now was quite common sixty years ago. Scenes of near
rape would not sit well with a contemporary audience, we were quite
convinced. We therefore decided to make small adjustments to the text, only
in cases where we felt scenes or phrases would be offensive to a 2009
readership. Also, grammar and spelling standards have changed quite a bit in
sixty years. But that did entail a text edit, which we had not anticipated."
You can read the rest here: *http://tinyurl.com/ygp7nuz
Bill Crider
*
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