Learn English – Why, in old books, are dates often given with the years redacted

dateswritingwriting-style

silly question, and I'm not sure this is even necessarily the right forum, but it's the most appropriate on StackExchange, so here we are.

Why is it, in older books, that years are sometimes redacted and replaced with a dash when writing the date in letters and so forth?

Here is an example, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:

Letter 1

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17–

TO Mrs. Saville, England

You will rejoice to hear that no
disaster has accompanied…

I've seen this in many (mostly older) books, and my only hypothesis is that it is/was a fashionable attempt to try not to make the book seem outdated quite so quickly; or as a sort of faux attempt to feign respect for privacy, within the world of the novel itself.

In a similar vein, in Frankenstein, several curse words (D–n) are also redacted. I assume this is a sort of Victorian modesty in not printing profanity, but if I'm wrong, I'd love to be corrected on that, as well.

EDIT: I just received this back from the reference librarian (libraries are so great!):

It seems that there is no definitive
explanation, but several explanations
seem to come up over and over again.
I am including the best of what I
found online, rather than some of the
random information that is posted
(though, I will include one online
discussion that might be interesting
for you all the same).

  • From author John Barth: http://www.colby.edu/~isadoff/ss/barth.doc
    "Initials, blanks, or both were often
    substituted for proper names in
    nineteenth century fiction to enhance
    the illusion of reality. It is as if
    the author felt it necessary to delete
    the names for reasons of tact or legal
    liability. Interestingly, as with
    other aspects of realism, it is an
    illusion that is being enhanced, by
    purely artificial means."

  • Electronic Labyrinth: Postmodernism and the Postmodern Novel
    http://elab.eserver.org/hfl0256.html
    "… a literary convention of the time
    when many books and pamphlets were
    written criticising the government of
    the day, or important figures, by
    using false names… Some rather
    scurrilous stories were also printed
    which were thinly veiled parodies or
    criticisms of important figures. So
    when Jane Austen wrote the
    __shire regiment, or the Earl of__, she was a)avoiding the
    pitfall of being accused of inaccuracy
    and b) avoiding the pitfall of being
    accused of criticism of some important
    political figures."

  • Here is that discussion I mentioned:
    Republic of Pemberley Archive: More or
    less:
    http://www.pemberley.com/bin/archives/regarc1.pl?read=9221

  • Here is one more online discussion
    with a very nice and referenced
    answer, though the source page is no
    longer available. It discusses the
    use of this convention in epistolary
    novels (novels written in the form of
    letters):
    http://answerpool.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/436601891/m/6931055141

Since I think a couple of these links came up in the answers below, I'm just going to upvote them all and mark as answered the closest one (not that it was a quiz; but there were many good suggestions, and I can only mark one as the answer…).

Best Answer

Austen, Bronte, and others used this device also for names of people, places, and even regiment names (Austen). Why would they do this? To avoid accusations of inaccuracy (perhaps the author is taking liberties with historical facts for the purpose of the story), or even libel. I found this on a google answers forum:

It's also a fall-out from a literary convention of the time when many books and pamphlets were written criticising the government of the day, or important figures, by using false names. [Swift]'s Gullivers Travels is possibly the best known of the earlier ones. Since the reporting of Parliamentary discussions was banned until about 1808, it had to be reported in newspapers under false names (and Samuel Johnson first did it by reporting the activities of the people of Lilliput!). Some rather scurrilous stories were also printed which were thinly veiled parodies or criticisms of important figures.

I would also agree that with redacted dates, this would avoid tying the story to a particular time; obviously that becomes less effective as the centuries pass.

Related Topic