Huck Finn gets makeover to meet 21st-century tastes

To some, Huckleberry Finn is getting a welcome makeover for the 21st century. To others, the greatest American novel is being sacrificed at the altar of political correctness.

Either way, a new edition of Mark Twain's most famous book has deleted all 219 of its mentions of perhaps the most incendiary word in American English: nigger.

Claiming that they want Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to reach as wide an audience as possible in an era when schools and libraries are painfully sensitive to racial politics, NewSouth Books, an Alabama publishing house, announced yesterday that the word "slave" will be used instead.

The new edition's editor, Dr Alan Gribben of Auburn University, said he hoped to ensure Twain remained required reading for children who might otherwise be put off by his casual use of the n-word.

"This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colour blind," he told reporters. "Race matters in these books ... It's just a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."

In addition to removing "nigger" from Huckleberry Finn, Gribben has altered the word "injun" in its sister text The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, so as not to offend Native Americans. The name of the book's villain changes from "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe".

Gribben admitted that his new edition would dismay traditionalists. "I'm hoping that people will welcome this new option, but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified," he said.

Yesterday, a chorus of academics, teachers and readers have criticised the move as misplaced.

The plot of Huckleberry Finn is explicitly progressive, they noted. The book's eponymous hero, a white youth, befriends an escaped slave. He then hears how he has been mistreated by his white master (or rather mistress) and helps him to win freedom.

Twain, who died in 1910, was a passionate critic of racism, and donated money to a number of civil rights organisations. But his failure to use politically correct language in Huckleberry Finn, which was published in 1885, has long been debated.

In 1957, the New York City Board of Education removed the novel from circulation in primary and intermediate schools. Today, it remains the fourth most banned book in American schools.

- INDEPENDENT