[HPforGrownups] "One more death" & more on MEM - Bertha at PI - kids' books/shipping from BBC

[Muridae]

No: HPFGUIDX 32323

Amy Z wrote:

>Margaret wrote:
>
>>My wild guess:  JKR originally meant for Crouch Jr. (or whoever)
>>to have killed Moody and taken his place, but in the course of
>>writing him she decided the character of Moody was Just Too Cool
>>and that she wanted to use him (Real!Moody) later.  (And who
>>shall blame her?  Certainly not me!)  So she modified the story
>>to suit, but missed the correction in the earlier chapter until
>>after the book was first published.
>
>Great theory, but unfortunately, the "one more curse" was written first.
>It's the American edition that says "one more murder."  Maybe they thought
>Americans would yawn at a mere curse and need a murder to capture our
>attention?

"One more curse" does appear to be consistent within the UK Bloomsbury 
editions. I have a hardback first edition of GOF, plus a paperback 
containing the 2001 revised edition with the Lily and James wand order 
reversal revision in it. The newer edition is unchanged in wording for 
the chapter in question, which leads me to believe that while JKR made 
all the changes that she considered to be essential for the new edition, 
changing "curse" to "murder" wasn't one of them. <g>

-- 
Muridae