UK vs. US editions of fiction?

Question

I am reading a novel the copy of which was bought and published in the US, but the novel was written and copyrighted by a British author and first published in the UK.\\*Apart from the apparent changes in orthography (candour->candor), a couple of lines in the book left me wondering how heavy the editing process actually was. On reflection, it may have been nil, but it did plant the doubt.My question is whether there is a typical, default approach to the situation (another publishing house, but without translation into another language), and, consequently, a rule of thumb for me of what to expect when meeting such a text.I will add that this is just a point of curiosity. I have no reason to expect one edition to be "better" or "more original" than another. -----\\* The book is John Le Carré, _The Night Manager_, copyrighted in 1993 by David Cornwell, published by Ballantine Books, imprint of Random House (originally published in the US in 1993).

Answer 1

The editing (or in this case "translation") process is heavily dependent on the publisher or author and their goals - there is not really one consistent standard. Translation - even from British to American audiences is an art form and is highly subjective. You can often find many different translations of the same text. There are typically two schools of thought on translation - remaining as close as possible to the original text or attempting to keep the reading experience as true to the original text. For example, when translating a poem from another language, one translator may choose to translate the words as literally as possible to their original meanings in the first language while forgetting the rhyme and meter, while another may choose to maintain the rhyme scheme and meter of the original poem and be more flexible with some of the original words' meanings. These decisions show up even with this less dramatic example from British English to American. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" was actually originally entitled "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" for British audiences! If you're really curious, the best way to find out more is to contact the translator or editor - usually they are pretty happy to talk about their process.