It's Not Like We're Talking About a Book in Albanian Here...
I think it's ridiculous how difficult it's proving to be to find a full, unabridged copy of Les Miserables in french. Particularly in a single or nice volume. So I was excited that my very own employer seemed to have one I could buy from their educational publishing wing at an employee discount.
What showed up at my door today? A scant 128-page book, of which very little is in anyway the 1,200 pages of text from one of the greatest novels of French literature. It's not only abridged, it's "simplified and adapted." If your editor isn't even comfortable calling it an abridged version, wouldn't you think you should mention that it isn't the complete novel in the product blurb? I'm kind of insulted, really. In addition to adapted text, there are uninteresting full page black and white illustrations, a short biography of Hugo, and a fairly extensive vocabulary glossary. It's like the French language Cliff Notes. I can send it back (at my own expense), but the cost of the that would probably make any refund minimal.
*sigh* I can now see I'm going to have to bite the bullet and import from France. It's just such a pain, not to mention significantly more expensive.
What showed up at my door today? A scant 128-page book, of which very little is in anyway the 1,200 pages of text from one of the greatest novels of French literature. It's not only abridged, it's "simplified and adapted." If your editor isn't even comfortable calling it an abridged version, wouldn't you think you should mention that it isn't the complete novel in the product blurb? I'm kind of insulted, really. In addition to adapted text, there are uninteresting full page black and white illustrations, a short biography of Hugo, and a fairly extensive vocabulary glossary. It's like the French language Cliff Notes. I can send it back (at my own expense), but the cost of the that would probably make any refund minimal.
*sigh* I can now see I'm going to have to bite the bullet and import from France. It's just such a pain, not to mention significantly more expensive.