Are the classics abridged too far?

Telephone directory-sized classic tomes are getting trimmed down to size. peter briffa approves

News that two of our most esteemed publishing houses are bringing out abridged versions of mildewed classics such as Moby Dick, Vanity Fair and War and Peace has, with a wearisome predictability, got the north London bookworm contingent up in arms.

Miserabilist novelist Jenny Diski blithely sums it up: "The smart modern way to make a profit is to tell people what they want and then give it to them. It's not difficult, it's capitalism."

If only. Feature film screenplays by Emma Thompson and four-part TV adaptations by Andrew Davies are garlanded with trophies. But slashing the fat off an 800-page doorstopper is regarded as an act of vandalism. Why? Since when has small not been beautiful?

Face the facts: too many of these ancient texts are just plain tedious.

Most of the best writers get pithier with age. Think Samuel Beckett, think Graham Greene

In the first place, Melville was writing for an audience who didn't have television. Most of his readers hadn't seen a whale. Now, thanks to David Attenborough, we all have. And we've all seen costume dramas. We don't need another description of a society wedding.

As for Tolstoy, well, even War and Peace could have done with a little pruning. There are way too many characters, and by the time Napoleon has marched on Moscow, instead of basking in the atmosphere, there's a worrying risk that the attentive reader might just nod off.

Most of the best writers get pithier with age, anyway. Think Beckett (left), think Graham Greene. And, when they go off in the opposite direction, mistaking verbiage for fluency, they get worse. Think Saul Bellow and Anthony Burgess. The same is true of the populists. JK Rowling was much more incisive before Harry Potter got bigger than the Bible.

If it works for William Shakespeare (when did you last see a full-length version of Hamlet?) it can certainly work for Charles Dickens.