"Edited for the Modern Reader"

I recently purchased a volume pur****ting to contain three novels by 
George MacDonald. They turned out to be "edited for today's reader". Out 
of curiosity, I checked a sample passage that caught my interest against 
the original text via Google Books. Here is the result:

Thomas Wingfold, Curate

pp. 226-27

 From a sad accident of his childhood, he had become acquainted with 
something of the influences of a certain baneful drug, to the use of 
which one of his attendants was addicted, and now at college, partly 
from curiosity, partly from a desire to undergo its effects, but chiefly 
in order to escape from ever-gnawing and passionate thought, he began to 
make _experiments_ in its use. Experiment called for repetition--in 
order to verification, said the fiend,--and repetition led first to a 
longing after its effects, and next to a mad appetite for the thing 
itself; so that, by the time of which my narrative treats, he was on the 
verge of absolute slavery to its use, and in imminent peril of having to 
pass the rest of his life in alternations of ecstasy and agony, divided 
by dull spaces of misery, the ecstasies growing rarer and rarer, and the 
agonies more and more frequent, intense and lasting; until at length the 
dethroned Apollo found himself chained to a pillar of his own ruined 
temple, which the sirocco was fast filling with desert sand.

Retitled and "edited for today's reader":

The Curate of Glaston

pp. 60-61

 From a tragic accident of his childhood, he had become acquainted with 
the influences of a certain baneful drug, to which one of his Indian 
attendants was addicted. Now at college, partly from curiosity but 
chiefly to escape from gnawing and passionate thought about Emmeline, he 
began to experiment with it. Experiment called for repetition, and 
repetition led first to a longing after its effects, and next to a mad 
appetite for the thing itself. By the time of my narrative he was on the 
verge of absolute slavery to its use.

*****

I open the field for comment as to what this implies about "today's
reader".

-- 
Dan Clore

My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

"Tho-ag in Zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas
zhiba. All Nyug bosom. Konch-hog not; Thyan-Kam
not; Lha-Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not;
Dharmakaya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang
and Ssa in Ngovonyidj; alone Tho-og Yinsin in
night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna),
&c., &c.,"
-- The Book of Dzyan.