Considering the overwhelming, negative response to Alan  Gribben’s revision 
of Huck, I was wondering if Charles Neider provoked  similar outrage when 
he deleted most references to the “evasion” in his  1985 edition.  That 
edition does not seem to be available now, but as  indicated in the Publishers 
Weekly review quoted on Amazon, Neider triumphantly  described how many lines 
he had been able to cut from the last third of the  book.  While Neider's 
revisions were less likely to inflame, and the PW  reviewer — possibly a 
Hemingway fan – congratulated Neider for “achiev[ing]  a brisker read,” there 
must have been some less appreciative  reactions.
 
From Publishers Weekly
In this centenary year of the first American  edition of Huckleberry Finn, 
Neider, who has worked long and well in the  thickets of Twain scholarship 
(this is the ninth Twain volume he has edited),  offers a most fitting 
tribute, for which he will be thanked in some quarters,  damned in others. 
Neider's contribution is twofold: he has restored to its  rightful place the great 
rafting chapter, which the author had lifted from the  
manuscript-in-progress and dropped into Life on the Mississippi, and he has  abridged some of the 
childish larkiness in the portions in which Huck's friend  Tom Sawyer 
intrudes into this novel. For decades, critics have lamented the  absence of the “
missing” chapter and deplored the jarring presence of Tom in  episodes that 
slow the narrative, but not until now has anyone had the temerity  to set 
matters right. In paring back the “Tom” chapters (which he fully  documents 
in his lengthy, spirited introduction, with literal line counts of the  
excised material), Neider has achieved a brisker read. Though there may be some  
brickbats thrown at him for this “sacrilege,” few should object to the 
belated  appearance of the transplanted rafting chapter in the novel in which 
it clearly  belongs. October 25
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This  text refers to an 
out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 
 
Paul Kleven 
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