Editing of English books in US

[JamesEverton]

I recently read a US version of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' and was surprised to discover that the text had been amended to reflect US spelling. Is this standard practise?

[Quizmonkey]

Yes - just as you'd expect to see anglicisation of US spelling in UK-published books by US authors.

[JamesEverton]

I don't think that I would expect that. Certainly I'm conscious of reading American novels with American spellings. Is there a distinction between a US book on sale here and 'UK-published'?

[Quizmonkey]

Take, for example, The Da Vinci Code. Written by an American - but you wouldn't expect to see 'color' and 'aluminum' in the UK edition, would you?

[jno]

they'll do what they can to make things more palatable to local readers. That's why the philosopher's stone becomes the sorcerer's stone.

[JamesEverton]

I think that I would (not that I'd be interested in reading the Da Vinci Code).

Maybe it's just me but I can't help wondering about what the point would be.

[lafrancaise]

A lot of foreigners find reading books in US english easier to read than UK english. For example The Harry Potter books are 'simplified' apparently...