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North and South
February 2002
Publication Date January 14, 2002
An Author’s Moral Right
by Lynley Hood, Dunedin
Lauren Quaintance’s article The Lonely Journey of Lynley Hood
(November) and Ros Henry’s response (Letters, December) raise
questions about the ethical and moral dimensions of book editing.
In my view, James O’Shea Wade put it best: “The editor should not play the
role of either expert or censor. If you suspect you are going to distort,
even unwittingly, the author’s ideas or expressions for whatever reason (your
“expertise” or your moral evaluation or even hazy issues like taste), then
you have no business editing that book. All of us would like to claim, with
Voltaire, that we might disagree with someone but defend his right to say
what we disagree with – but professionalism demands that an editor not get
involved if there is any likelihood of crossing the line that separates
objective, supportive work on the book from trespassing on the author’s right
of expression.”
When measured against Wade’s ethical standards, the publishers and editors I
have had the pleasure of working with on the production of Sylvia! and
Minnie Dean (Penguin), Who is Sylvia? (John McIndoe) and A
City Possessed (Longacre) were and are consummate professionals. They
understood and respected the distinction between legitimate editing on the
one hand, and censorship and infringement of the author’s moral right to the
integrity of the work on the other, and they never attempted to cross the
boundary between the two.
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