An abridgement (or abridgment) is a condensing or reduction of a book or other creative work into a shorter form while maintaining the unity of the source. The abridgement can be true to the original work in terms of mood and
tone, capturing the parts the abridging author perceives to be most important; it could be a complete
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
of the original or it could fall anywhere in between, generally capturing the tone and message of the original author but falling short in some manner or subtly twisting their words and message to favor a different interpretation or agenda.
A written work may be abridged to make it more accessible to a wider audience; for example, to make an adaptation of it as an
audio book
An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.
Spoken audio has been available in sc ...
or a
television show
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
, to make a more convenient companion to an already-established work or to create a shorter reference version.
Unabridged is the opposite of abridged. A common example is an unabridged
dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...
.
Abridgement for audio
Abridgement is most often used to adapt a book or film into a narrated audio version. Because books written for adults are generally meant to be read silently to oneself, which is usually much faster than reading aloud, most books can take between 20 and 40 hours to read aloud. Because many audio book listeners are looking to listen to the information in a book more quickly and because of the high cost associated with recording and distributing 40 hours of audio, audio book versions of novels are often produced in an abridged version.
Some party, usually an editor for the book's publishing company, goes through the text of the book and removes elements, notations, references, narratives and sometimes entire scenes from a book that could be considered superfluous to the actual story or focus of the book in order to make its audible reading time shorter. A fully abridged audio book can span as little as 4 hours for a book that would span 20 hours unabridged.
The easiest content of a fiction book to edit out is
back story that is often provided for characters or story elements that help support the reality of the story for the reader but fails to provide any narrative to the story itself. For example, a passage such as "John sped away in his automobile, a red 1967 Mustang he'd purchased from a junkyard and spent most of his college years restoring with his father" could be abridged to "John sped away in his automobile, a red 1967 Mustang" or, if context permits, simply "John sped away."
In a
nonfiction
Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...
piece, the most commonly abridged details are references, charts, details and facts that are used to support an author's claim. While it would be unprofessional or irresponsible to omit such details from a book, it is understandable for an audio book, as it is assumed the listener wants to hear the author's opinion, and the listener who needs to check the details may refer to the text.
Occasionally, an abridged audio book will be advertised as "abridgement approved by the author," which would imply that the original work's author has reviewed the trimmed down version of the work and agrees that the intention or narrative of the story has not been lost or that no vital information has been removed.
In many cases, an audio book for a popular title is available in both an abridged and unabridged version, but the abridged version often is released first and almost always costs significantly less than the unabridged version. Often, the two versions are produced independently of each other and may have different narrators. Unabridged versions of books are popular among those with poor eyesight or reading skills who wish to appreciate the entirety of the work, and the abridged version is more often preferred by those who want just a quick and entertaining way to follow the story.
On the radio (for example, in British
Radio 4 programmes as ''
Book of the Week
''Book of the Week'' is a BBC Radio 4 series that is broadcast daily on week days. Each week, extracts from the selected book, usually a non-fiction work, are read over five episodes; each fifteen-minute episode is broadcast in the morning (9:45a ...
'', ''
Book at Bedtime
''Book at Bedtime'' (''A Book at Bedtime'' until 9 July 1993) is a long-running radio programme that is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each weekday evening between 22.45 and 23.00.
The programme presents readings of fiction, including modern classics, ...
'', and ''
Go 4 It
''Go4It'' was a British children's magazine programme broadcast on Sunday evenings at 7.15pm on BBC Radio 4, and one of the few speech-based shows on British national radio aimed at younger listeners. It was broadcast between 2001 and 2009.
His ...
'' for children), books are almost always abridged and so if someone were trying to read along with the book, one would find it much more difficult than on an audio book.
Abridgement for print
A shortened form of literary work in which the major themes of the original are kept occurs in books for faster and easier reading. The Signet Classics Abridged Works are notable examples of abridgment; the Signet Classics Bible, for example, is 40 percent shorter than the 850,000-word
King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...
. Although well-known passages in abridged works are often left intact, editors may remove "repetition, rhetoric and redundancy" from a complete work.
Until roughly the mid-19th century, the act of abridgment was widely regarded as
fair use
Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
and was among the most frequently abused loopholes in British and American copyright law. However, by the 1870s, international outcry from authors and publishers alike prompted legislatures to consider revisions to end the "very unreasonable" principle.
While increasingly uncommon, some books are published as abridged versions of earlier books, which is most common in textbooks, usually lengthy works in complicated fields like
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
or
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
. Abridged versions of popular textbooks are published to be used as
study
Study or studies may refer to:
General
* Education
**Higher education
* Clinical trial
* Experiment
* Observational study
* Research
* Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning
Other
* Study (art), a drawing or series of drawi ...
aids or to provide enough surface information for the reader to become familiar with the material but not have a full understanding of it or its full scope.
Abridgement for television
Plays, notably by
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, have very often been heavily abridged for television to fit them into ninety-minute or two-hour time slots. (The same is true of long classical ballets such as the two-and-a-half hour ''
Sleeping Beauty
''Sleeping Beauty'' (french: La belle au bois dormant, or ''The Beauty in the Sleeping Forest''; german: Dornröschen, or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess cu ...
'', which has almost never been performed complete on television.) It was done more often in the past than it is now (such as in ''
Hallmark Hall of Fame
''Hallmark Hall of Fame'', originally called ''Hallmark Television Playhouse'', is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City-based greeting card company. The longest-running prime-time series in t ...
'' from the 1950s to about 1970). With the advent of such noncommercially-sponsored PBS anthologies such as ''
Great Performances
''Great Performances'' is a television anthology series dedicated to the performing arts; the banner has been used to televise theatrical performances such as plays, musicals, opera, ballet, concerts, as well as occasional documentaries. It is pr ...
'', ''
Live from Lincoln Center
''Live from Lincoln Center'' is a seventeen-time Emmy Award-winning series that has broadcast notable performances from the Lincoln Center in New York City on PBS since 1976. The program airs between six and nine times per season. Episodes of ''L ...
'' and the ''
BBC Television Shakespeare
The ''BBC Television Shakespeare'' is a series of British television adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, the plays of William Shakespeare, created by Cedric Messina and broadcast by BBC Television. Transmitted in the UK from 3 December 1978 to ...
'' plays, there is now less pressure to cram a play lasting at least three hours, such as ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'', into a two-hour time slot.
Abridged series
An abridged series is a fanmade parody that uses video footage from an original series, often filled with comedic redubbing. It is called "abridged" because episodes are not as long as the original episodes and the comedic implication of being a proper summation of events. The first abridged series, ''
Yu-Gi-Oh!
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. It was serialized in Shueisha's ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' magazine between September 1996 and March 2004. The plot follows the story of a boy named Yugi Mutou, w ...
The Abridged Series'', was created by Martin Billany, better known by his screen name LittleKuriboh, in 2006 and has since inspired multiple popular abridged series such as ''
Dragon Ball Z
''Dragon Ball Z'' is a Japanese anime television series produced by Toei Animation. Part of the ''Dragon Ball'' media franchise, it is the sequel to the 1986 '' Dragon Ball'' anime series and adapts the latter 325 chapters of the original ...
Abridged'' by
TeamFourStar
TeamFourStar is a YouTube channel and production company most notable for the creation of the ''Dragon Ball Z Abridged'' web series, a parody of the iconic anime television series ''Dragon Ball Z''. Noted for its satirical humor of various story ...
and ''
Sword Art Online
is a Japanese light novel series written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec. The series takes place in the then-near future and focuses on protagonists Kirito (Sword Art Online), Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya and Asuna (Sword Art On ...
'' Abridged by Something Witty Entertainment.
Since most abridged series are uploaded to Youtube, they are occasionally subject to aggressive
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
takedowns by parent companies.
References
{{reflist
Censorship in the arts
Editing
fr:Résumé