Re: RARA-AVIS: Harlequin

From: grbc74 (gbaeza@gmail.com)
Date: 28 Nov 2009

  • Next message: trentrey: "RARA-AVIS: Re: are authors the best judge of their work?"

    Yes, I believe sanitizing Hadley is probably the best example of how Harlequin is far more prudish than it used to be 50 years ago. Plus, it's not as if their Gold Eagle books are any less violent than any of their vintage reprints. Maybe they should've issued these titles under their Gold Eagle imprint. I've never read one of their romances but I've been told they are far more sexually explicit than they used to be decades ago. It's funny how they have a double standard when it comes to violence or explicit language.

    -GB.

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "James Michael Rogers" <jeddak5@...> wrote:
    >
    > 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@...> wrote:
    >
    > From: Bill Crider <macavityabc@...>
    > 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 behaviorâ€"such as hitting a womanâ€"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
    > *
    >
    > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
    >
    > ------------------------------------
    >
    > RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
    > Yahoo! Groups Links
    >
    > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
    >



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 28 Nov 2009 EST