Stop spoilering classics already! [CC]

[voice-over] Hey, you! Yes, you! Are you about to settle down with  a previously unread classic you just know is going to be your new favorite book? Reader, beware! A  recent study has found that an ungodly amount of classics feature prominent spoilers right in the  introduction. If you don't want your new favorite book ruined, you would do best to avoid any forword,  introduction, or preface until after... oh dear. It's already too late. [Claudia] Heathcliff, you naughty boy! Why is this a thin

g? I've asked myself that question quite a few times, in fact I have previously made a video  on this very same topic, but I still have thoughts on this. Why is it that many classics just straight  up spoiler the book either in the introduction or, what's worse, something for example this edition  of The Tenant of WildfellHall does, in the blurb on the back. Why does it tell you the entire plot  including twists and reveals, you know, the sort of fun little moments that make reading a story wort

h  it? Why does it just give it all away in the blurb or in the introduction? I've just randomly pulled  out some classics from my shelf and Wordsworth Classics is like the worst for it. This edition of  Far From The Madding Crowd spoilers the plot in the introuction. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall spoilers  the plot in the introduction and on the back. This Oxford World Classics edition of Wuthering Heights  has a big spoiler in the introduction. This Folio Society edition of Emma has a spoiler i

n the  introduction. This Fingerprint Classics edition of 1984 has a spoiler in the preface. And this  is just a small almost like a random selection of classics that I've taken off my shelves just  to check. There are many many more books that do that and I know that there are many readers who  have stumbled across a random plot spoiler as they open up a new classic and read the introduction. If you're not familiar with how introductions to classics usually work, they tend to be basically  anal

yses of the book that are written by some academic or other and printed right at the  beginning of the classic that you're reading. So a lot of the time they will explain certain  themes. A lot of the time they'll explain a little bit of the behind the scenes, a little bit  of the creation history of the book. They'll have a short biography of the author and they'll  just give you some background about the book that you're about to read. But here's the thing: these  texts, these analyses these b

ehind the scenes background bits of information, they're not really  meant to be read before the book. They're not really meant for a reader who hasn't yet read  the book. They are sup... what's the word I'm thinking of? Supplementary. Supplementary bits of information  that really only make sense if you've already read the book. So why do so many publishers insist on  printing them right at the beginning of the book where any innocent reader might stumble across  them unaware that they are abou

t to be spoilered? So why is this a thing? I can only really think of  two reasons why publishers choose to put spoilers in their introductions to classics: one of them  is that they expect a person who buys a classic to already know the story, which, if you think  about it for even just a few seconds, doesn't make sense at all. Because at which point is a  reader supposed to read a classic for the first time if the target audience for new editions  of classics is people who already know them? T

he second reason which is much more likely is that  publishers don't expect people to read classics for their stories and therefore maybe they expect  people to pick classics for the themes, you know, the deeper issues that are addressed in the book,  for a historical document of its time, for anything basically other than the plot of the  story which I think is an insult to the authors who wrote these classics. Because as much as  Emily Bronte perhaps intended to write a a story in which "relat

ions between men and women are  described with an emotional and imaginative power unparalleled in English fiction," she also clearly  wanted to write a story. She wanted to write a plot. She wanted to write about a series of events that  happen and that the reader discovers at the same time as the main characters of the book discover  them. I can't believe I'm having to define a plot here because the publishers of classics don't  seem to think that Classics have a plot, which obviously they do.

Something like The Tenant of  Wildfell Hall is an absolute pageturner in my opinion. I devoured this book not knowing where  the plot was going, not knowing what the mysteries were that surrounded the characters in the book  and I'm so glad that I read this without looking at the blurb or the introduction, because that would  have taken a lot of the fun of this book away if I had already known what was coming up. Rebecca,  one of the most iconic early 20th centuries thrillers. To give the publis

her credit here, which  is Virago Modern Classics, this book does not have an introduction. This book starts right with the  iconic first line "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." However, it does have an afterward in  which, if you're thus inclined, you can read all about the creation history and about du Maurier's and about the themes of the book, after you have already read it and you know what's happening. I  really think it is disrespectful to just assume that classics aren't re

ad for the story inside  them because that is the number one reason why I read classics. I don't read classics because I  want to philosophy lesson. I don't read classics for the analysis. I don't read classics for the  themes and I don't think classics were marketed to people who read them for the themes at the time  that they were published. You know, when Charlotte Bronte published Jane Eyre, obviously under  a pseudonym, the people who bought Jane Eyre wanted the story of a governess. They w

anted the story of  the mysterious Mr Rochester. They wanted to know what was going to happen. They didn't pick up this  book to get a lesson on women's independence. They might have gotten a lesson on women's independence  along the way, but that wasn't the selling point of Jane Eyre, was it? The way that publishers are so careless  with the story of classics kind of makes classics into pretentious books for pretentious people, when  really they're not. But that is, I think, the effect that the

way the classics are marketed today  has, and the idea that classics are not like modern stories which you read for enjoyment, instead  they are intellectual stories that you read for knowledge... those are not separate things, right?  You can enjoy the story, you can be entertained by the story and you can learn some things while  reading the story. Just like with literally any other book. It feeds into this separation between reading for entertainment and reading for some sort of intellectual

enrichment, the same  separation that people make between genre fiction and literary fiction is made between  modern entertainment and classics, and I wish that wasn't there. I wish they would market  classics in the same way that they market modern fiction, and as part of that I wish they'd bloody stop spoilering classics to people who haven't read them. As a little aside to that,  I recently came across a publisher... this is not sponsored, by the way, I genuinely came across this  publisher

while I was researching a previous video... called Pulp the Classics, which reprints classics with sort of pulp fiction style covers and taglines, which is absolutely hilarious. So I'm  going to show you some on the screen. Here we've got Wuthering Heights: "Here is looking at you, Cathy!" and  we've got Robinson Crusoe: "Solitude was driving him nuts!" This one might be my favorite. Pride and  Prejudice: "Lock up your daughters... Darcy's in town!" with what looks like a picture of Colin Firth'

s evil  twin on there. This is obviously tongue in cheek. This is obviously supposed to be ironic, but I I  really love this twist on the classics. I like how they're marketing them as these gruesome  tales that you spend very little money on and you get a lot of entertainment for. I think Pupl the Classics is doing a great thing here. I don't know if they're selling where I live but I  might have a little look at their selection. I'm also going to link them in the  description box. Not sponsore

d, they don't know I exist. My point is we're doing classics a  disservice if we are putting them on a pedestal of intellectual coldness, if we stop treating  them like stories that aren't worth reading for the entertainment value of them, if we stop  presenting them as plots and we instead just present them as a collection of themes and  ideas. Because the great thing about novels is that themes and ideas are communicated via  the medium of story and we can't just ignore the fact that classics

are first and foremost  stories. I think we are doing readers at disservice by promoting and presenting classics in  that way because it suggests that if you want a really good thriller for example then you won't  find that in a fiction published in the 20th or the 19th or the 18th century, which is blatantly  untrue. One of the most page turning books I read this year was a novel from the 1860s which was  Lady Audley's Secret. A book that I would have found a lot less gripping if I'd known in a

dvance  what was about to happen in it. Let's Rediscover classics as stories. Let's stop putting story  spoilers in the introductions and on blurbs. Let's stop putting the focus on analysis. That's  not to say you can't analyze classics and indeed I like analyzing classics. I like reading analyses  of classics, but that's not why I read classics. That's a fun little addition to them after I've  read the book and I know what happens in it, after I've enjoyed the story on the surface level,  then

I can delve deeper and read an afterword for example or read a separate piece of analysis.  But I think we should trust classic literature to shine by itself and to engross people by itself  without pretending that it's only worth is in the analysis of it rather than the plot of it. So with  that in mind, I'm going to do a slightly less ranty, slightly more bookish followup to this video in  which I'm going to recommend what I consider pageturning classics, books that really grip  me by the plot

and that's coming to this channel soon. But until then let me know what you think  of the issue. Have you ever been caught out by a unexpected spoiler in the introduction area?  Or do you actually prefer to know what's going to happen in a book before you read  it? Perhaps there's readers out there that appreciate knowing the themes before going into  a book, but still, if you are that sort of reader, right, then you can still look at the afterword, right? The thing that bugs me about this whol

e introduction/spoiler business  is the introductions are meant to be read before a book. We hardened veterans of classic reading know  not to look at an introduction, but most people would just innocently pick up a book and start reading it from page one. [Minerva beeps] Oh, hey, Minerb? What do you think? Oh, do you think it's feeding time?  [Minerva beeps] Minervy? Well, I think Minerva would quite like to stop rambling about classics and instead  get to giving her lunch so I shall do that

now. [purring sounds] are you purring into the microphone? The  sight of her pretty little triangular face makes me forget what I  wanted to say at the end of this video, but I'm pretty sure you got  the point. Thank you for watching, bye.