I loved the book when I first read it about 15 years ago and was looking forward to finally reading it again. The copy I purchased got me really angry. It's been shortened beyond recognition, which is NOT mentioned in the title! At first I only noticed the brackets after nearly every paragraph, but then I realized that whole chapters are cut out, which are, of course, important to understanding the plot. Instead, there are pages and pages of analysis and understanding of the chapters, which I'm sure you can't when you haven't got the whole book (not that I've read any of this stuff)! and which are really quite irritating when you just want to read the blimmin book! It's put me off now, I'm so far into the first volume, I may have to wait another 15 years before I can read it again. Aargh!