A filleted Moby Dick? How dare they, says Jenny Diski of  Weidenfeld & Nicolson’s intention to publish compact editions of classic novels with the sales pitch “Great books in half the time”.
“To offer cut-down versions is to disgrace publishing, to give up on writers and on the possibility of literature. Actually to give up on anything except making money.”
Abridged non-fiction is easier to defend. Penguin’s new series of historic travel dispatches, which I have just reviewed for the Telegraph, is likely to direct people to books and writers they might otherwise not have read.