Publisher To Delete “Racially Insensitive” Words From Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not only one of the greatest works of literature ever produced in America, it’s also one of the works most often targeted to be banned in public and school libraries.

That is why the only thing I find surprising about a publisher releasing a bowdlerized version is that it hasn’t already been done before now.

Twain himself defined a “classic” as “a book which people praise and don’t read.” Rather than see Twain’s most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of  Huckleberry Finn , in a single volume with  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , that does away with the “n” word (as well as the “in” word, “Injun”) by replacing it with the word “slave.”

“This is not an effort to render  Tom Sawyer and  Huckleberry Finn colorblind,” said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he’s spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. “Race matters in these books. It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”

The idea of a more politically correct Finn came to the 69-year-old English professor over years of teaching and outreach, during which he habitually replaced the word with “slave” when reading aloud. Gribben grew up without ever hearing the “n” word (“My mother said it’s only useful to identify [those who use it as] the wrong kind of people”) and became increasingly aware of its jarring effect as he moved South and started a family. “My daughter went to a magnet school and one of her best friends was an African-American girl. She loathed the book, could barely read it.”