Welcome to abridged books

Many may consider it a sacrilege to abridge  books, implying an irreverent attitude towards the authors of the works. But the other side of the coin is that these books mostly written at an earlier, more leisurely time, were meant to be read when there were not many other diversions. Also more importantly they dealt with issues relevant to their times & which appear dated now. Two examples being the extensive analysis of military strategy in Tolstoy's "War & Peace" & the endless philosophical discussions in Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain." Also the non-musical content of Romain Rolland's multi-volume "John Christopher."

When one reads the uncut "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame, one instantly notices the extraneousness of the chapters "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" & "Wayfarers All." Thankfully these are excised in Inga Moore's impressionistically illustrated edition.

This becomes even more necessary in non-fiction books which are part of the literary canon like Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" & Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations." Though they were written for the non-specialist reader, they are forbidding enough to the modern reader. So the illustrated Young Reader's edition of Darwin & the Capstone edition of Adam Smith will attract readers, who might not have touched the originals at all. This, to quote from Shakespeare's "Hamlet", "Is a consummation devoutly to be wished."