On the whole, the issue to critics was not about the novel HUCKLEBERRY FINN but about the audacity to change a racial slur. However, translating one word did not “sanitize” enslavement from the book, as critics were falsely charging.

Of the scores of editorial cartoonists making these false charges of censorship and sanitizing, only one cartoonist, Jim Day of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL (Jan 12, 2011), made the point that Mark Twain’s novel was more likely to serve as a door stop than to be read since it is a classic. Then he quotes Twain defining “classic” as a “book which people praise and don’t read.”

The “classic”–Original Text Edition–and the NewSouth Edition are available on 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 and from the University of Georgia press https://ugapress.org/imprints/newsouth-books/ In 2023, NewSouth Books merged with the University of Georgia Press.