The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

[al Roumi]

I am decidedly bored by these manichean left-right worldviews dominating so many threads. 'It's bad, so it belongs to 'the other camp''.

Yawn...

Fais do do, Louis mon petit frere
Fais do do, t'auras du lolo.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Fais do do, Louis mon petit frere
Fais do do, t'auras du lolo.

[drone]

I think some of you are missing the point. The word was offensive then, and is offensive now. But Mark Twain did this deliberately to highlight the character of Jim against the rest of the white trash in the book. IA is right, this is a whitewashing of a critically satirical book. By removing the n-word, the publisher is attempting to clean up the past.

The word has nothing to do with Twain, it has everything to do with the story and point he is trying to get across. No point in teaching the book if it gets neutered, which may very well be the end-goal of the publisher.

I hear they are also taking out "Injun" as well. Someone on Slashdot said it best, there isn't an editor alive qualified to touch Samuel Clemens' work.