The book is getting to some of its most exiting scenes now, so I wonder what effect that will have had on the editor’s pen? [I’ll admit to one of my grammar problems now, I really struggle with affect and effect. Someone, please correct me if I’ve got it wrong just now!]

A reminder of earlier posts: part one, two, three, four, five and six.

The 1997 paperback, with the illustration from the first edition

The dustjacket of the 1965 edition (which differs from the first edition)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DOWN IN THE DUNGEONS

Well, a disappointing moment for my theory. Hardly anything got edited in this chapter. Maybe the editor got swept up in the story.

What was changed was the usual stuff, queer becoming weird and then strange, whilst being altered to while twice, and a bit of de-hyphening if that’s a real word. The modern edition has is a little more consistent here, Blyton uses key-hole twice and keyhole once, whereas this is altered to read keyhole in all three instances for the paperback.

On the plus side, I was able to enjoy more of this chapter instead of constantly putting the book down to make notes! Anyway, onwards.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: PRISONERS!

Well, we seem back on form already. By the second line of the chapter we’ve got a silly change. In the original, George is dumbly staring at the ingots, and holding one in her hand. This has been changed to in her hands. The previous chapter tells us they walked in, flashing their torches, so I wonder if George has a third hand secretly, so she’s got two on the ingot and one on her torch. I can’t think why this has been changed, unless they think George (who’s just been smashing a heavy door with an axe) is too weak to hold an ingot with one hand.

Next, capitalised words are made lower-case. Julian is yelling down the passage; WE’VE FOUND THEM! HURRY! HURRY! the capitals adding volume and drama. In lower-case, it lacks the same punch. I’m not advocating using capitals every time someone raises their voice, but sparingly they do add to the story.

Another baffling alteration, George originally tells the men that The island and the castle belong to my mother. It gets changed to This island… I’m sure both are perfectly correct but I’m not sure why they went to the effort of changing it.

There were two queers in this chapter, but of course they are now strange and odd. And finally, worth while is altered to worthwhile which is a more common way of saying it these days.

So still not many changes for quite an action-packed chapter.

We were at 95 changes by my rough count, now it’s 107 as there were only 12 changes between these two chapters. I think that’s the least yet, and as someone who loves to come up with theories, may I suggest the editor got bored and/or tired by this stage?

In fact, this post is so short I’m going to treat you to a third chapter. (Also, there’s an odd number in the book so it’s this or a whole post on a single chapter later!)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DICK TO THE RESCUE!

Another barely-touched chapter here. We’ve got two whilsts to whiles, which is consistent anyway.

Also, Dick thinks it’s lucky that he’s good at gym, in the original this has a full stop after it to signify it’s short for something, and that’s been removed in the paperback, presumably as gym has been adopted into normal usage. It actually made me stop and wonder exactly what it was short for. Gymnasium, the room you would do gym in doesn’t make sense in the context, so I’m left thinking gymnastics. He’s talking about climbing ropes so that makes sense, though at school when we said gym we meant any sort of physical lesson – what was known as PE (physical education) at high school, or games if you went to a posher school, and it covered everything from swimming and running to tennis, hockey, volleyball, badminton, basketball and so on.

And last but not least, something that’s happened a few times, hie becomes hi. This time Dick is speaking, calling for Julian and George, Hie, Julian! Hie, George! who are locked in the room with the ingots. He’s not saying hello, and if he was he wouldn’t say hi, he would say hallo most likely.

Another four changes takes us to 111 then, and a good place to stop. Only two more chapters to go, so that’ll go on in about two weeks, and then… well, I’m tempted to do another book, but looking at the 2010 (I think) editions where they become Mum and Dad. But I don’t know, I might have a fit of apoplexy and never write again if I did that.

So as promised here is the next two chapters of Five on a Treasure Island, compared to note any textual changes between them. (In case you’re just joining us, I’m comparing a 1965 17th impression to a 1997 paperback.)

Earlier posts can be found here, here, here, here and here.

The 1997 paperback, with the illustration from the first edition

The dustjacket of the 1965 edition (which differs from the first edition)

CHAPTER ELEVEN: OFF TO KIRRIN ISLAND

I’ll start with the sort of changes we’ve seen a lot of already.

There’s only one use of queer in this chapter and it becomes odd instead. Three whilsts become whiles, and Julian’s clean shorts become clean jeans. Also, hie Tim! is now hi Tim! (last time it was changed to hey Tim!)

The first new alteration I spotted is in George’s long internal monologue. She thinks I wish I was like them. Or in the modern copy, she wishes she were like them. Quite a petty little change, I’m not sure if one is technically more correct than the other but I didn’t see much wrong with was in the first place.

Another petty change is made later to one of Julian’s pieces of dialogue. Originally he says we must find out exactly under what spot the entrances to the dungeons are, but by 1997 it has become under which spot. Again it seems pointless to change one little word in the sentence like that when it still says the same thing.

The last change I spotted is clearly a typing error (at least I hope so.) I can’t imagine what that is, said Julian, puzzled, has become I can imagine, which makes no sense.

CHAPTER TWELVE: EXCITING DISCOVERIES

Again, starting with familiar alterations the three queers become funny, strange and peculiar in that order, and queerest becomes strangest.

After three hours hard work gets an apostrophe added, so it becomes three hours’. I see that written a lot – in fact if you write it in Word without the apostrophe you get the blue squiggly line under it that implies it might be a grammatical error (on that note, how does the blue differentiate from the green in Word? Red is misspellings, green is grammar, so what’s blue exactly?) Not that I trust Word implicitly, it keeps wanting me to write “Its fine,” in dialogue and other foolish things. Anyway, I actually don’t like the apostrophe in those uses. It implies the work belongs to the three hours, when really it’s saying three hours of work. Unless it signifies the missing of, as it would signify the missing o in don’t.Either way it seems to be grammatically correct these days so I probably should just accept it.

I’m not sure about the next alteration. Rings are only let into stones that need to be moved seems like an all right sentence to me. You let a bucket down into water, so in the same way you could probably let a ring into a stone. Anyway, it’s now been changed to set into stones which might make more sense. Maybe.

Tim no longer loses his foot-hold, instead he loses his footing. Foot-hold seems fine and quite clear in meaning to me.

Finally, there’s a bit of editing to the various echoes that occur in the dungeons. I’m not going to type the whole lines out but essentially Blyton uses a mix of capitals and small letters in her echoes (along the lines of “it’s an echo, it’s an ECHO, IT’S AN ECHO etc) but in the paperback all echoes are all in caps. I think Blyton gives a better impression of an echo, as they do change slightly as they bounce around.

On a side note, referring back to the last post (I think) I made where I commented on weird being used, it’s actually in this chapter. And it still looks odd and distinctly un-Blytonish to me despite the fact I’ve read this book countless times. I suppose before I’ve always gotten so swept away in the excitement of reading that I haven’t taken the time to notice every little word.

So that’s another seventeen changes, and if my counting is about right, we’re up to 95 alterations. Nearly at the one hundred mark! (I’m aware my count is in not very accurate as I’ve counted every instance of queer being changed but only the first time to-morrow became tomorrow etc.)

The story’s getting to a quite thrilling part now, and I’ll have chapters 13 and 14 done over the next two weeks.

I’m sure by now these posts don’t need any real introduction. This one looks at chapters nine and ten, and continues to suggest that more action equals more editing!

Earlier posts can be found here, here, here and here.

The 1997 paperback, with the illustration from the first edition

The dustjacket of the 1965 edition (which differs from the first edition)

CHAPTER NINE: THE BOX FROM THE WRECK

The first change is a tiny one, more of a correction than anything. In the original we have the windows at the house referred to several times, specifically as french window twice and then french windows once and windows once.

The paperback makes it a bit more consistent with three uses of french window. I think though, all the references should be plural as french windows are, as far as I know, traditionally used in pairs or more (the illustrations certainly show a pair). I had been wondering if the first word should have been capitalised but it would seem not according to most sources I’ve checked.

Spanking is removed twice, both times becoming a much less threatening telling off. It’s interesting that though the course of the book no violence ever occurs; all the uses of spanking are purely threats or the children worrying about consequences.

Some of the charm of the original is lost next, when Julian’s excited cry, Hie, he yelled. Hie! I’ve got it! becomes plain of hi! The two aren’t even the same. Hi is a short greeting, hie is much more of an exclamation (often used when telling Tim off “hie Tim, get down!” etc.)

Very oddly Tim, don’t nibble my bathing-suit  had been changed to don’t lick me. I cannot fathom why!

Blyton has used a capital letter for the ingots, presumably to make them sound more important, but the updated version does away with these capitals. I personally don’t like the use of Capitals to make words sound Important except in a few well-done stylistic cases, so I can’t decide if I feel this one should have been left alone or not.

Another strange change, while the four children are examining the map Tim is trying to but in and see what’s going on. The narrative says but for once in a way not one of them paid attention to him originally, but that gets edited to remove the in a way. Those three words are possibly superfluous, they don’t add a great deal to our understanding of the situation, but at the same time they are utterly inoffensive that I can’t see why someone deliberately went to the trouble of removing them.

Not long after, George remarks he [Tim] can’t understand our excitement. Which in the paperback has become your excitement, which to me rather changes the meaning of her words. Until that point George had been ignoring him too, yet in the modern edition it sounds like she is shifting blame to the others alone.

CHAPTER TEN : AN ASTONISHING OFFER

Less happens in this chapter; it’s mostly talk and following my theory nicely, there are less changes, and those that are made are incredibly minor (aka petty.)

First is one that just HAS to be a mistake. Uncle Quentin originally says he gets more [money] even than I could expect for the writing of my book. In the modern edition he says more even that I could expect. I can’t see any way that could have been intentional. Than compares, more than I thought. That makes no sense to me in the context.

Again Ingots becomes ingots, and at this moment I realised something else I had failed to notice so far. Bear in mind I’m at least a hundred pages in by now and I’ve just realised that the original has used double quotation marks for speech, thoughts and highlights, whereas the paperback uses single ones for everything. Have to say I prefer the doubles, especially for speech.

A few more very minor alterations: week-end becomes weekend (can’t say I ever noticed that word ever had a hyphen before!) business man changes to businessman, and an hotel becomes a hotel.

A mixed bag there. I understand taking away the hyphen, as nobody uses that any more, it’s as obsolete as to-day and to-morrow. On saying that I’m not sure it’s necessary to remove it. I think it’s interesting to know we used to use hyphens then, like it’s interesting to see people say ‘plane ‘phone etc as they tell use these shortenings were new to them, much like the full words must have been not so long before.

Possibly going against the grain but I prefer business man to businessman, same for businesswoman and I despise businessperson/businesspeople (they look bad and they’re harder to say clearly). Honestly, who thought ramming two words like that together was a goodidea?

I do prefer a hotel to an hotel though, as the h in hotel is pronounced as a consonant. I feel the same about when the person on the news says ‘an historic’. Just NO!

And (grammar rants over now I promise!) lastly, we’ve got another in a way, this time removed from for once in a way George didn’t push it [Julian’s arm] away. 

So that was eight changes in chapter nine and six in chapter ten, bringing us to a total of, I think, 78 alterations. How many more before the end?