Have some classic books been more than "updated"?

[Sheep]

Hello,

This looks like a wonderful forum. After lurking awhile I decided to join and take advantage of what seems a very knowledgeable and personable membership.

OK..my first question

I'm an avid reader of Andrew Murray's writings. I recently began a book of his called "The Master's indwelling. Because I've read so much of Murray's work I've believed I have a "sense" of how he thinks and writes. This book, however, seems a bit "touched up". I know that there is the "updated for the modern reader" thing that gets done to older writings...but this seems almost to be interjected with theological subtleties that have a different than Murray flavor....maybe it's just from a different period of his life than I'm acquainted with...I don't know.

I read a review once, of another Murray book..."Divine Healing" .... by someone who was railing against certain modern teachers whom he believed had freely altered the book to their own doctrinal bent. The reviewer sounded as if he knew that this sort of thing goes on.

My question in a nut shell: Does anyone know if this kind of licence is commonly taken with the classic/public domain literature?

[nChrist]

Hello Sheep,

I'm also a big fan of the Christian Classics. One of my favorite sites is:

Grace Gems   http://www.gracegems.org/

As far as I know, all they do is update spelling of Old English words and other minor, cosmetic things (i.e. convert Roman numerals in Scripture References). I would be upset if I found out that someone was radically changing classic works. I have a pretty large collection of public domain materials - both in updated formats and scans of the original in PDF format.

I haven't heard about anyone doing what you're talking about. If I found out that someone was butchering classic works, I would let others know and avoid that site. I don't know of anything else you could do legally, but maybe there's something I don't know about. I'm not aware of this practice being common - at least in the sites that I use. If you do a search of most older works, there's a good chance you will find a scan of the original in PDF. You would then be able to determine how much was done to the version you are reading. Now you've made me curious to do some checking. Maybe someone else on the forum knows more about this potential problem.

Love In Christ,
Tom