ONLY a purist wishing to keep Scott a minority interest could object to Professor Purdie's dissected version of Ivanhoe.
As a late arrival to Scott, who tried Peveril of the Peak as a teenager and found it too dry to swallow, I admire his intention to make Scotland's least-read literary genius more accessible.
While there's nothing he can do about the antique tone that some may still find offputting, his edit is no act of sacrilege. Rather, it gets to the heart of the story by trimming the maze into something less confusing.
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