Companion Library

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Companion Library

1jasbro
Maio 16, 2021, 10:33 am

Question: Are individual works in the Companion Library Publisher Series (https://www.librarything.com/nseries/256078/Companion-Library) the originals, abridgements, or young/easy reader-type adaptations? Many are combined with their corresponding main works, but a number of them are separate. I'd understood they're adaptations, but I'm unsure where our copies are at the moment or how I'd confirm or correct my understanding. If I'm working through some clean-up on them though, I don't wanna to be making a mess. Thanks!

2jasbro
Maio 16, 2021, 10:35 am

P.S.: If anyone can suggest other Talk Groups to post the question, that'd be helpful too!

3aspirit
Maio 16, 2021, 10:41 am

Do the Companion Library books all have ISBNs? If they do, knowing the numbers might help with sorting out which books should be on the series page.

4jasbro
Maio 16, 2021, 11:04 am

>3 aspirit: Some of the newer copies do, e.g. Andersen's Fairy Tales {Companion Library}, but that edition is copyright 1963, pre-ISBN. WorldCat specifically shows ISBN 0448054558 as a Companion Library volume, and identifies it as for "juvenile audience" but also "translated," not "adapted." Many other works having "Companion Library" in their titles are combined with ISBNs for other, non-Companion Library editions of the main work. If CL editions are the same as original, the combinations are correct; otherwise, we should distinguish the CL editions, which I'm inclined to try.

5Crypto-Willobie
Maio 16, 2021, 2:48 pm

One Amazon reviewer had this to say about the Companion Library edition of Kidnapped:
I was very disappointed by this rewritten version of Robert Louis Stevenson's book "Kidnapped". I had ordered it assuming that it would be the original text. What I got was a version that had been rewritten by someone to apparently make it more acceptable to or "current sensibilities". It is not the original book, and I was very disappointed with the rewrite!

6jasbro
Maio 16, 2021, 3:11 pm

>5 Crypto-Willobie: Thank you! Absent different information, I think we're right to continue separating these. I wonder whether the same editions also appear in other Publisher Series, such as the "Illustrated Junior Library"?