A modern edition of Jane Eyre – with half the book cut out
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Given the vast amount of contemporary children’s fiction being published in Britain, it may seem surprising that authors spend so much time tampering with the classics. In the last few years, there have been “re-imaginings” of everything from The Railway Children to Peter Rabbit; Michael Morpurgo recently rewrote 10 of Shakespeare’s plays.
The latest well-known work in the firing line is Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, which has been abridged by the British writer Patrice Lawrence “to inspire and engage a new generation of middle-grade [ages eight-to-12] readers”. Lawrence adds in her introduction that she felt uncomfortable with the “more troubling aspects of [Brontë’s] story”, including its depiction of mental health, and the connections between the Rochester family and wealth derived from West Indies plantations.
In contrast to many contemporary adaptations, however, she has focused on abridging the original text, rather than airbrushing the story. Brontë’s book contains 38 chapters, and runs in the Penguin Classics edition to 624 pages, but Lawrence’s version is a brisk 224-page novella that can be devoured in an afternoon. Jane’s entire stint at Lowood, “a charity school for charity children”, is dispatched in a few dozen pages. Brontë’s opening line – “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day” – becomes “The sun is setting and the rain beats against the window”, setting the tone for Lawrence’s less lyrical present-tense narration.
Curmudgeons might, at this point, be asking why the new generation of eight-to-12-year-olds are unable to read the original. But Lawrence says that she loved to “wallow” in Brontë’s language, and despite such a heavy pruning, she has preserved much of the heroine’s pathos: “I do believe that if I were a prettier child, more carefree and content, I would not be treated so harshly. But I am who I am, and as much as I wish it, I cannot change to please them.”
And despite Lawrence’s reservations with aspects of the 19th-century story, it is to her credit that the plot remains intact, Mr Rochester’s mad wife is still in the attic, references to West Indian-derived wealth remain, and the likes of Jane’s bullying cousin John Reed are wholly unreformed: “Mama says that your father left you no money and you are nothing but a dependent. You should be a beggar, not living here eating the same meals as us!”
It will be a pity if children don’t go on to read Brontë’s original tale. But if this highly readable version can whet their young appetites for the Victorian classics, then its purpose will have been well served.
Jane Eyre: Abridged for Young Readers is published by Walker at £7.99. To order your copy, call 0844 871 1514 or visit Telegraph Books
