What’s in a Word? Censoring Huckleberry Finn

NewSouth Books has decided to move ahead with their new version of Mark Twain’s classic book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, despite widespread criticism of the edition, which replaces Mark Twain’s use of the n-word with the word “slave” on 219 occasions. If you’d like to stick with the uncensored version, UC Press’s authoritative edition of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn leaves all uses of the word intact, just as Mark Twain intended.

The New York Times’ Room for Debate hosted a discussion on the possible justifications for altering Mark Twain’s words, while Stephen Colbert skewered the new edition in typically subversive fashion, asking, “Who knows what other words it contains that are O.K. now that someday might be offensive?” Watch the clip from The Colbert Report below.

What do you think? Are there merits to NewSouth’s decision to modify a painful racial epithet? Or is it always wrong to censor an author’s original language? In any case, the controversy hasn’t been all bad for NewSouth. They’ve upped their initial print run from 7,500 to 10,000.