Further to my last post, I've now had a chance to review
The Faraway Tree Collection omnibus.
The book contains the three Faraway Tree books - ie
The Enchanted Wood,
The Magic Faraway Tree and
The Folk of the Faraway Tree. As I said before,
The Magic Faraway Tree is stated to have been "slightly abridged".
I will start with the good news:
The Enchanted Wood (29 chapters) and
The Folk of the Faraway Tree (26 chapters) seem to be complete reproductions of the 1970s Dean "revised" editions.
Now the bad news: The 1970s Dean "revised" edition of
The Magic Faraway Tree contains 26 chapters. The omnibus "slightly abridged" version only has 20 chapters, the 20th chapter being "The Land of Magic Medicines". That is, the following chapters are not included:
(21) Some Peculiar Adventures
(22) Watzisname has some Queer News
(23) The Land of Tempers
(24) A Most Exciting Time
(25) Everything Comes Right
(26) The Land of Presents.
Dean has omitted the very exciting scenes involving Moon-Face and Silky being taken prisoner by Sir Stamp-a-Lot and Dame Yell-Around from The Land of Tempers. They have also left out the lovely visit to The Land of Presents that follows.
But to make the story seem ordered, Dean has cobbled together bits and pieces of chapters 20, 21 and 22 under the heading of chapter 20, then added the final paragraph from chapter 26(!) to finish the book.
In particular, in The Land of Magic Medicines, Dean includes the text up to where the pixie asks Jo (in chapter 20) if he has come for some medicine for shining eyes. Everything after that is left out until the scene (in chapter 21) where the goblin asks the children what medicine they want. That is, Dean has left out Dick growing tall and then being shrunk back to size and Saucepan Man taking a pill that makes his nose grow.
Having resumed the story with the goblin's question, Dean publishes the paragraphs where Jo receives the Get-Well medicine, then has him state:
"Now, come along everyone. Let's go and give dear Mother a dose of this magic medicine. It will be so lovely to see her looking well again and rushing around the house as she always did. "
The rest of chapter 21 is then omitted. The next paragraph is the first paragraph of chapter 22 - ie "Fanny was delighted to see Jo, Bessie and Dick back." The story then follows chapter 22 up to the following paragraph:
"We'll put the rest of the bottle of magic medicine away", she said [ie the children's mother], I don't need it any more - but it would be very useful if anyone else is ill".
The rest of the book is then omitted, except for the last paragraph of the final chapter after the children visit The Land of Presents. Even this is modified, as it originally described the children walking through the wood.
I am very upset with Dean.
With so much of the story left out, the book is hardly "slightly abridged".