[Jim Burrows]

Interesting topic. I heard the editor yesterday on NPR, and his intention, as he stated it, was for this edition to be an alternative available to high school teachers. In other words, the book is intended for young readers in a public forum, not for private reading by those of us who love Twain.

It's easy to imagine the repeated presence of the N-word (and "Injun" as well) simply overwhelming every other consideration of the book in a high school classroom, where students often have to read aloud, or where the teacher reads aloud, where lectures have to be given, etc.

During the radio interview yesterday, people called in decrying his replacement of the N-word with the word "slave", but I noticed that no one actually uttered that incendiary word on the air. That's what this edition is intended for, as far as I can tell: to take that word out of the actual text, while stating its presence in an introduction. Students will know, every time they see the word "slave", what the word actually is, but it won't have to be read.