Unmentionables. A few posts ago, Moira noted the hand-wringing pantywaistedness of a publisher of classic books who felt compelled to preface every title with a parental advisory, for the children! But now I've got an example that tops hers for silliness and degree of bowdlerization.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: The N-word of the Narcissus.

...the introduction of "n-word" throughout the text, to remove this offence to modern sensibilities.

Oh dear. I fear the onset of an attack of the vapors just posting about it...

(Tip o' the chapeau to Messrs. Hill and Campion. For the technologically up-to-date, there is also a Kindle version of the story, which preserves Conrad's original text, but just can't quite bring itself to write out the title in full.)

UPDATE (27Dec09): Questions as to the sincerity of this effort have been raised (see Comments). It's possible that this is the work of a conservaMoby, but I dunno. If it's a joke, it's a very elaborate one, involving a real publishing house and, apparently, real books. According to the infallible Wikipedia, the presence of ... that word! has, in fact, been considered an obstruction to the work being read and taught:

In fact, were it not for the book's title, it undoubtedly would be read more often than it is currently.

— cite from some guy

According to the publisher's web site,

The focus... is the translation and/or publication of works of scholarship expressive of historic Western Christendom.

Which makes them seem like an odd suspect for this sort of joke. Maybe they just really really want people to read more Conrad (well, more Conrad, minus that word).

Posted by David Fleck at 26 December 2009 11:02 AM