Mark Twain is one of America’s foremost authors and is considered to be the grandfather of modern literature. Twain also lived a very interesting life surrounded by all types of people in what he would no doubt characterize as interesting times. Fortunately, the world has changed a lot since Twain’s death, but Twain’s classic works have not changed. Until now, that is. Publishers NewSouth are behind a movement to clean up Twain’s language, removing offensive terms like “nigger” and “Injun” from the stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Interestingly enough, the man behind the movement to whitewash Twain’s language is a Twain scholar. Indeed, Alan Gribben is one of the leading Twain scholars of the 21st Century. Gribbin says he is behind NewSouth’s cleaned-up Twain in an attempt to keep the books on school shelves after there were issues with Big Read Alabama’s version of Tom Sawyer.
“This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind,” said Professor Gribben, the head of Auburn University’s English department. “Race matters in these books. It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century. […] After a number of talks, I was sought out by local teachers, and to a person they said we would love to teach this novel, and Huckleberry Finn, but we feel we can’t do it anymore. In the new classroom, it’s really not acceptable. For a single word to form a barrier, it seems such an unnecessary state of affairs.” Added Gribben, “I’m hoping that people will welcome this new option, but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified. Already, one professor told me that he is very disappointed that I was involved in this.”
The controversy-free Twain editions will be called Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: The NewSouth Edition and will retail for $24.95 in hardcover. I can understand the reasoning behind the movement, but I think it robs teachers of a teaching moment where they can explain the differences between Twain’s time and our time, and how Twain’s novel is a landmark anti-segregation, anti-slavery work in spite of the now-forbidden use of language. But what do I know? I’m just some horrified textual purist who isn’t afraid of a little salty language.
Tags: Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, NewSouth, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: The NewSouth Edition, Mark Twain books edited to remove the N-word, racist language, the n-word, Alan Gribben, Auburn University, Montgomery, Alabama
