The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [188]
While I had realized that naturally books could be published and sold in countries other than the United States, I hadn’t realized that the author normally got paid for this. I also hadn’t realized that there might be differences between the original of a book and a foreign edition—especially one written in the same language.
Sale of the first book to a British publisher led to a number of small changes and complications. At my request (since I’d never been to Scotland), the British publisher obligingly asked Reay Tannahill, a very well-known Scottish historian (and a fine historical novelist herself) to read the manuscript. Reay kindly sent me a number of notes on small details of the manuscript (such as what colors one could reasonably expect to produce using vegetable dyes, the color of the prevailing granite in Argyllshire, and what Loch Ness really smells like), which were immensely appreciated. The U.S. version of the book had reached galley-proof stage by the time I received Reay’s comments. However, I was able to incorporate almost all of them into the American version, with one exception.
Reay told me, “The war (World War II) didn’t end as abruptly for us as it did for you in the United States. Rationing and wartime austerity were still in effect for some time after peace was declared—and there are still a number of people alive who remember that. Your story starts in 1945, but the conditions you’re describing would be much more believable a year later; the book really should begin in 1946.”
“Fine,” I said, and called my American publisher.
“We can’t do that,” they said. “You can make the other changes, as long as they’re small, but if you change the beginning date, that will change dates all through the book. We’d have to send the manuscript back through copy-editing, and we’re too close to production to do that.”
Consequently, Outlander begins in 1945, and Cross Stitch begins in 1946. This small dichotomy later led to a persistent error in Dragonfly in Amber (see “Errata”), which I have never quite figured out how to clear up, other than to explain its existence.
While the books from Dragonfly to Drums are mostly identical in terms of text between the U.K. and U.S. editions (naturally, the covers are quite different), there are a few small differences between Outlander and Cross Stitch, beyond the title and dating.
The Americans’ response to the book was, “Once she has Jamie, why would Claire even think of going back to Frank?” whereas the English editor’s response was, “But what about her nice husband back in 1946?!” The British editor felt that Claire didn’t spend quite enough time worrying about poor Frank, and might be perceived as coldhearted. Consequently, there are six additional paragraphs scattered through Cross Stitch (that aren’t in Outlander) in which Claire worries about Frank.
Beyond small copy-editing changes, I did alter a bit of geographical description that was incorrect; the sort of readers who go through novels with a map in hand will have noticed (in Outlander) that I had Fort William misplaced by a number of miles, and that it is not really feasible to end up in Inverness while on the way to Oxfordshire, no matter how you mean to travel.
The British editor also asked me to excise the brief scene that concludes the chapter titled “Raiders in the Rocks,” feeling that this was perhaps slightly too graphic for their intended audience. I was not quite sure why that particular scene struck her as more graphic than a number of others in the book, but it was not—as most of the others were—integral to the plot or thematically connected to other parts of the book. Removing it would do no damage to the book as a whole, so I agreed to cut it out.2, 3
Beyond such minor cosmetic differences, though, the U.S. and U.K. editions are the same, and the texts of the U.S. and U.K. editions of all the other books are completely identical, as the U.K. publisher now prints directly from the U.S. text.
1See Appendix VI for a list of foreign editions and publishers.
2There was