So yesterday, I bought a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s on apple books to read at work on my lunch break. It was okay, but when I went to find the page count to record it in my reading journal, I noticed that the text is completely different from my penguin classics edition. The Apple Books version is shortened, and is just a crappy abridgement of the original. Now I’m pissed off, because I paid for the digital version and it didn’t say anywhere that it wasn’t the original text. It even used the penguin paperback edition cover art! Is there any way to report this kind of stuff?
This is sadly very common. It happened to me when I tried buying a 99 cent kindle ebook of Henry James’ Turn of the Screw. I thought I just sucked at 19th century English but then I realized the writing was a little too indecipherable. When I looked up another version I realized it was completely different, as though it was run through a translator and then back into English. I’m afraid it’s a very common scam.
Just so you know, you should be able to read Henry James from Project Gutenberg since it’s out of copyright by now. Project Gutenberg provides free ebooks of out of copyright classics.
I always appreciate the PG plugs, great art should be free for everyone. I usually choose to pay a little bit extra for the Penguin/Oxford versions of classic books simply because the notes and essays included make a lot of difference in understanding the important contextual details. It’s completely up to the reader though.