Editing: It's a good thing.

I said somewhere earlier this week that I thought that the editing on the Harry Potter series had gotten sloppier with the later books. Then I thought of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

I have a copy of the first American edition of Chamber of Secrets, which contains the following:

"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly, "because Lord Voldemort -- who is Salazar Slytherin's last remaining ancestor -- can speak Parseltongue."

Cute trick, that, being someone's last remaining ancestor.

Another shameless plug...

Yesterday's madameverdi quiz was about first lines from novels -- today is first lines from poems.