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Opinion: Let 'Huckleberry Finn' Stand

You've probably heard the news by now: Mark Twain is getting an extreme makeover. An Auburn University professor, Alan Gribben, has decided to whitewash the 219 instances of the N-word right out of "Huckleberry Finn," and while he's at it, he's going to remove "Injun," too, for good measure. The new and supposedly improved...

Opinion: Mark Twain and the Word That Dares Not Speak Its Name

Mark Twain's classic "Huckleberry Finn," one of the most frequently banned books in America and one that is increasingly erased from reading lists and curricula across the country, is about to re-emerge in a racially cleansed format that makes it palatable for our oversensitive times, erasing a word I dare not mention,...

Opinion: This Isn't the First Time 'Huck Finn' Has Been Targeted

As the news flows to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom about yet another bowdlerization of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," my heart breaks. Pre-emptive censorship harms us on many levels, but the worst damage is done to young readers who are denied access to the richness of...

Opinion: We Need Good Teaching, Not Censorship

Many people are outraged over the news that a publisher is producing an expurgated edition of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" for use in schools. As someone who defends free speech for a living, I share the view that this is a very bad idea. But it is important to recognize that the publisher is not trying to corrupt...

Opinion: Why Mark Twain Can't Win After All These Years

Poor old Mark Twain. Dead for a hundred years now, he's recently undergone the two worst kinds of editing that any writer can endure: too much and none at all. I'd have said the two worst kinds of editing that any writer can endure and live, but of course it's too late for that. Too late by a century. We can still hope...