Randall Williams, NewSouth Books
Month: July 2023
8 Famous Authors Whose Works Have Been Rewritten by Their Publishers
“Although one member of my campus department personally chided the NewSouth editor-in-chief for altering the text, most of my colleagues seem to comprehend the purpose of this effort to reintroduce Twain’s novels into the classroom. Professors in the fields of medieval and Renaissance literature even mentioned the many concessions in translation necessary to make the…
Emails and Letters to Alan Gribben, 2011
Within a few weeks of the PUBLISHERS WEEKLY article, my office computer registered 1,082 personal emails–443 (41%) strongly objecting to the NewSouth Edition, most of these unsigned and a great many of them seeming to take pleasure in an opportunity to throw the n-word around in denouncing me and my edition. A significant percentage…
Remarks about using the n-word in the classroom
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: “I completely stopped teaching this book because of the effect it has on African American students. Any person who disagrees with your version should be forced to assign and teach the original version . . . just so they can experience the difficulty and discomfort of such hateful language in a scholastic…
American Realism in 1840
“The use of the n-word in the 1840s when HUCKLEBERRY FINN is set was historically accurate in in keeping with the American Realism Movement of which Twain was a proponent.” –Alan Gribben The Original Text Edition (and the NewSouth Edition) are available at Amazon https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+alan+gribben+books&rlz=1C1EJFC_enUS868US868&oq=amazon+alan+gribben+books&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.8542j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1 and UGA Press https://ugapress.org/imprints/newsouth-books/ (NewSouth Books merged with UGA Press…
Why is removing the n-word not censorship?
PEOPLE Magazine took note of the controversy, Jan 24, 2011.
“Textual purists would rather the book not be read at all than to make a change that would encourage readership of a great American novel.” –Alan Gribben
The NewSouth Edition that removed a racial slur and caused a “controversy.”
The N-Word Controversy
Social media in 2011 meant Facebook and Twitter.
NewSouth Edition of HUCKLEBERRY FINN
NewSouth Bookstore, 105 S. Court Street, Montgomery, Alabama
Dr. Alan Gribben, Scholar and Editor 