Books

Huckleberry Finn, edited for hipsters

Darren Atwater | Thursday 13 January, 2011 15:25

So there has been all sorts of to-and-fro over the decision of NewSouth Books to publish an edition of the long-in-public domain work Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with the word nigger replaced by the word slave.

Thankfully, law on public domain allows for other publishers to create their own specialised editions as Brooklyn publisher Dumbo has done with the Hipster Huckleberry Finn. Every instance of nigger has been replaced by hipster, resulting a thoroughly up-to-date book that can be taught in classrooms from Dalston to Williamsburg to Strathcona.

Here’s a sample paragraph:

So the next day after the funeral, along about , the girls’ joy got the first jolt. A couple of hipster traders come along, and the king sold them the hipsters reasonable, for three—day drafts as they called it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them hipsters would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls said they hadn’t ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold away from the town. I can’t ever get it out of my memory, the sight of them poor miserable girls and hipsters hanging around each other’s necks and crying; and I reckon I couldn’t a stood it all, but would a had to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn’t knowed the sale warn’t no account and the hipsters would be back home in a week or two.

You can purchase it here for £12.57 or just download the PDF for free.

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